Hello from a San Francisco Scaredy Cat

[Paul Elliott]

The South Channel is a channel in name only! I only use it on very calm days.

Kennau (the OP), if you're still there, have you been able to get any sailing time?

Here's my favorite shot of the Golden Gate Bridge, taken as we were returning from Hawaii in 2008:


So get out there! It can be glorious!

[speakeasy]

Originally Posted by Kennau

Hello Friends: Hello from San Francisco! I'm relatively new to sailing and am planning to sail with my boyfriend from SF to Cabo and back this November-December. I am terrified. Terrified. Tell me it will be okay.

Welcome aboard, Kennau. You've gotten the best advice you could have so far it seems to me. I will just add a little emphasis to some ideas. Face up to the fear and it goes Poof! Get skilled-up with a course of basics, perhaps with an all women class. They're around most places it seems. Takes the man-thing out of the equation, of the lover being teacher dynamic, which can be tough both ways. Which brings up the elephant in the closet of what's what with the boyfriend? How many outside sailing questions would the feeling of being "terrified" be freighted with now?

Go out on the ocean and see if you like what you see. I find it levitates my spirit after being in the over-stimulated buffeting and noise of the city. Make sailing yours, personally & irrespective of others. Anchor out in lovely bays every spare block of time and learn how to live life aboard. It really isn't hard, but alot of it will involve new ways to do stuff.