Sailing School

We enrolled in sailing school with the Blue Water Sailing School out of Fort Lauderdale.  While Kim is, of course, an excellent sailor and sailing instructor, and Benjamin certainly knows small boat sailing and racing,  Aislin and I have a lot to learn.  We have gotten pretty good at inshore stuff: navigating markers, driving the boat, but have a lot to learn to be capable offshore sailors.  And yes, Kim has the skills and knowledge to teach us what we need to know.  So I’ll just call this class a $5000 investment in our marriage.  The school sent a captain to our boat, and we spent a week sailing.  In one week we covered 4 ASA classes:  101, 103, 104, 114.

Our captain was excellent.  As a physics major she has so much knowledge of the whys of sailing, wind, weather changes, navigation planning, even taught us the basics of diesel engine maintenance and trouble shooting.   We sailed from Fort Lauderdale down to Biscayne Bay in Miami and then spent several days just sailing all day, learning how to handle each position on every point of sail, doing Man OverBoard drills, learning how to plot courses and use a handheld compass for navigation.

One of the places we anchored was No Name Harbor in Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park on Key Biscayne.  It is a well protected anchorage with easy access to the shore.  Skipper loved getting to stretch his legs on walks.  We will definitely be returning.

We also went to Boca Chita Key and spent a night there. We had a little mishap. I was pulling in, getting the boat positioned to dock against the seawall. Ben was on the port stern (left back side of the boat) and had a fender ready to place, except he forgot that there was a line hanging from the other end of the fender too. Before he knew it that fender was yanked out of his hand as the line got caught in the prop. I lost steerage (couldn’t do anything with that port throttle) and the wind blew us into the wall. No damage, more like a controlled slow crash. Once we were tied up and the boat was secured, Ben got the honor of jumping in that water with a knife and a flashlight to cut the fender loose and the line off the prop. It was pretty cold and the wind was blowing hard. Aislin ended up going in with him to hold the flashlight, and then I went in to make sure everything was clear.

In addition to being an excellent sailor, Capt. Jen is also and avid fisherman. She taught us how to troll as we sailed off shore. We caught Spanish mackerel, Bonito, Skipjack, and several Tunas. We threw them all back except for 2 of the tunas—which were delicious.

It was a wonderful week. I wish I had more pictures of us sailing, but honestly we were so busy sailing that nobody had the time or a free hand to take a picture. But we learned a lot this week and had a ton of fun doing it!!