My wife and I are a year into our sailing careers. We stumbled on the idea while down in the
Bahamas with our sea kayaks, staying at a marina condo where we started to talking to sailors, or they started talking to us. Folks were interested in the folding kayaks we travel with.
From the idea, we began reading everything we could get our hands on. Sailing seemed a natural extension of sea kayaking, maybe a bit more comfortable. : ) I loved talking to sailors who came down the coast from
Nova Scotia each year to the
Bahamas. Travel, exploration, thinking ahead a decade to
retirement and, most of all, the thrill of
learning. Sailing is such a deep activity. Once you learn the basics, a world is unlocked that you kind of knew was out there, but glimpsed sideways through media,
books and tales from a friend of a friend.
We took a class last spring and joined a community sailing club here in Boston and spend each weekend sailing Boston Harbor in a 24ft
sloop. It was kind of like learning to ride a bike in Times Square, but you really get to understand the Colregs quickly when you're out there with sailboats, tugs, water taxis, ferries and cargo ships. It was sad to do our last sail on Halloween. We lasted a week or so and then started thinking about next steps. We decided to
charter a boat in
Antigua with an
RYA Yachtmaster and get our next levels of
certification and actually live on a boat for a week. Loved it. They do get small after a week, but much easier than tent camping from a sea
kayak.
A few weeks later we bought a boat. We'd been looking around since the summer and like you, didn't want to buy something that would require a lot of
work to sail. We found the perfect boat, a Hans Christian 38, down in South Carolina and have spent the
winter learning its systems from the previous owner. We've hired a
delivery captain to sail with us back to Boston and are looking forward to the next stage of learning.
All of this to say that we, too dream of sailing the world. But until we have the time and skills to do so, we're going to love sailing where we live. The sailing community is good people. Welcome!
Chris
Linear Mode
Recent Discussions