I'm a sailor!

Ahoy matey! Fine I guess I'm not a pirate but a sailor is close enough to be able to say that right?

Soon after I moved here, I was over the moon I would be living by the lake. I loved being able to walk along the lake and enjoy the beach and the water...but then I saw boats out on the water and I said to myself, why be BESIDE the water when I could be ON the water!

And with that, I signed up for sailing classes at the Kelowna Yacht Club. It was half classroom teaching and half on-the-water teaching. While the classroom stuff was cool (we learned about weather and the parts of a boat), the on-the-water instruction was where it was at.

My first time in a boat, and keep in mind I have no nautical experience, I got to steer it and help change the sails! I guess sailing a boat is like flying a plane: you can read and learn all about it but until you actually do it, you don't know what you're doing. My teacher is awesome and a super talented skipper (yes, I speak boat language now). He lets me and the other students do pretty much everything because sailing is all about being hands-on.

My sailing classes have been awesome. Time just flies by when you're on the water. I think that's in part to just being out in nature and being on the water...and then in part because you're so busy looking at the wind, looking at your sails, looking out for other boats, steering, changing the sails...you're too busy taking care of the boat to notice time slipping away!

I want to re-count my early evening though in this blog post. My sailing classes have pretty much wrapped up but I don't want to stop sailing. I obviously don't have enough money to buy my own boat to sail so I have decided to do the next best thing: take advantage of someone else's boat. And what does that entail? Joining the racing team at the yacht club.

Yes, that's right. I am now a crew member of the Predator, my sailing teacher's boat. Today was our first race and MY GOSH, I'm exhausted! Leisure sailing is very different from race sailing. In leisure sailing, you putter along the lake and change tacks (directions) every once in a while. In race sailing, there is a pattern of buoys you have to race to and around and it's all about being first and sailing efficiently.

The winds were surprisingly strong today, which meant it was a killer to move the sails around because you had to work against the wind and pull the ropes in tight. My arms hurt right now, even as I type, they ache. Anyway, there was a set course all the boats have to race so the entire time (the race took about an hour total), my teacher, who was steering the boat, would tell me and the other crew member when we had change up our sails. And you have to time it just right. You have to let go of one sail and let the wind carry it to the other side of the boat just as the skipper is changing the boat's course.

The race in itself was the most extreme adrenaline rush! There was the whole competitive factor of course but there was the rush of changing the sails right and then trying to make the sail the right shape to give the boat more speed, then attempting to do all that while the boat is about 45 degrees to the water because the wind was just THAT strong against the sails. Today was the first time I've gone sailing where I was relieved to be wearing a life jacket because there were a few times I could have gone overboard. Being the lightest on the boat, I worked a lot with the sails while the other guys sat on the other side of the boat to try and weigh it down.

After the race, my crew and I were tying the boat up at the dock at the yacht club and I turned to my teacher (the skipper) and said, "That was too cool!" I was really nervous about racing and I had told him that earlier but after the race, I was on such a high! The race just left me exhilarated and I'm itching to go back out on the water and learn more. I want to work more with the other types of sails and learn how to steer better and understand the wind and water better. There is just so much more I can work on and I'm stoked for the races this summer!