Soaring with Eagles

Funny to see all the form guides for the worlds, Its hard for me to do one as I dont know a lot of the people who are forecast to be at the top, I've just read about them, and I dont know what will happen anyway... and so I dont think about it. But its nice to be included as a contender, and perhaps I will be..

But that's only if I dont see an Eagle.

To explain, I saw one at the worlds last year at Garda. Now I know the meaning of seeing an Eagle because I grew up in the US, learning about American Indian folklore and fables of the mid west, like Pahute, the ghost horse who was the son of Blue Streak, and of course about Eagles. When you see an Eagle its a message from the Creator..

But I didnt just see an Eagle, it found me. Specifically half way up the last beat of the only race I won last year. It came from under my wing and flew, ten foot in front of the boat, same height, same direction, same speed as me..for a while.

Christ I've always expected a "sign" but with Scott Babagge breathing down my neck and doing 14 knots upwind..it caused me some confusion. Should I follow the Eagle. What if..?

Anyway I didnt, the lay line came up and I had to tack. But I will next time.

And now I feel sick. Imagine when I die, standing naked before God and he says "Simon I sent you a sign, and all you did was tack for the fucking layline!"

I'm not looking forward to that meeting actually.

But it's influenced the way I think about most things, I'll take my chances, no more "what if's"

And so having recently discovered about a thousand pounds missing out of my current account, the result of temporarily loosing my wallet in a restaurant in Italy whilst training the Swiss Moth team and (quite probably) the waitress booking a couple of first class airline tickets from Milan to Egypt as I ate, my first thoughts were to head for the bank, but I remembered the Eagle, so sod it I'm going, never been to Egypt anyway.
;-)

Excellent picture courtesy of Will Blair, Marketing Manager, Fat Face.