Thanks for the invitation Caleb. I now fly international only, so I won't be laying over in Seattle any more. It was one of my favorites though, I loved to walk down to Lake Washington and look at sail boats and sea planes all day!

I have been very fortunate being able to sail at most of my international layovers, always with someone I met through this forum, so I would like to thank Mary and Rick, because without them keeping the whole thing alive, it would be a very sad state of affairs for cat sailing here in the states!

I've been lucky to sail with Dermot and Stephen in Dublin, Wouter in Holland, Andi in Switzerland, and Erez and Izzy in Tel Aviv. All of these guys have been fantastic hosts and very generous with their time and boats.

I would highly recommend that if you are traveling out of the states, (or even in the states) you mention it on this forum. If there is a cat sailor near your destination he can get you pointed in the right direction to find some good cat sailing.

What has amazed me the most in my travels is that in all these international locations they have BETTER cat racing organization than we have here. They have clubs that are happy to include cats rather than treating them like second class citezens, or banning them all together, like most clubs do here.

Sailling in general is much more accepted as a passtime in most other countries. I have long wondered why that is. My personal theory is that a lot of it has to do with our cheap gas (50% of what the rest of the world pays) so our recreational boaters are much more likely to buy a power boat or jet ski.

The other reason I think sailing is more popular in other countries; sailing takes a whole lot more work, thought and intelligence to master, than a jet ski. As many of you with children in public school here in the states know, the US has fallen to about #17 in the world ranking for education, science and math especialy are getting very poor marks. And our kids have access to at least 120 chanels of TV, so every day after school, they can plop down on the couch and watch 5-6 different cartoon channels, rather than go out doors and break a sweat.

So I think the two things together have led to sailing becoming a small niche sport for most Americans, no close clubs, no access, few programs to get them started, etc., where as most other countries see it as a great way for kids to learn about science, weather, water, nature, with no money spent on gas!

If you ever pick up a "Yachts and Yachting" magazine, (the Brit's version of Sailing World, published every two weeks, and it always has a few pages devoted to cats) you will see quickly how much more effort they put into sailing.