Sail Away

I'm sailing away. Set an open course... for the virgin sea. Because I've, got to, be free!

Well, Mike stepped up and took action instead of sitting on his arse as he is prone to do.

Yes my friends, I signed up for sailing lessons. I've been talking about it ad-nauseam to anyone who'll listen, or at least not run away, for over a year. ...And now I am finally doing it. I have always been fascinated by boats since I was a wee lad, yet have surprisingly little time on them. I believe the majority of my time on the water has been on a Washington State Ferry. Sad. For the longest time, it was powerboats that I desired. It started out with the hydros, throwing a big rooster tail, to ski boats and fast runabouts. Later I desired a fishing boat that I could overnight in which eventually turned in to a cruising trawler.

About a year and a half ago I got infatuated with sailboats. I don't know why, it just happened. I read a few books, Sailing Alone Around the World by Joshua Slocum, Fatal Storm: the Inside Story of the Tragic Sydney-Hobart Race by Rob Mundle, Close to the Wind by Pete Goss, Fastnet Force 10 by John Rousmaniere and Adrift by Steven Callahan. All good reads.

The dream as of today is to eventually have a little boat that I can race. That looks like a fun challenge. Of course that can all change tomorrow. The Puget Sound is a great place for cruising. It would be a blast to fart around in the San Juans.

Realistically my goal is to learn to handle a boat, get decent at it, and work my way up to being able to charter a decent sized sailboat and know what I am doing.

Ultimately it would be really interesting to cross an ocean. I worked with a fella once that told me about when he sailed to Hawaii once. In the middle of the Pacific, hundreds maybe thousands of miles from anywhere, they had a very still night, no wind what so ever. The sky was clear. He said that there were more stars than he ever could have imagined in the sky and since the ocean was glass, they were all reflected from below. It was as if his sailboat was in outer space. I need some stories like that in my repertoire.

I have to start somewhere.