At the end of the month we’re setting off for a long weekend of sailing classes.  These classes will be the last of the bare minimum of classes required in order to book a  bareboat charter.  Bareboat you ask?  Well…

s/v Lionheart, Village Cay Marina, Road Town, Tortola, BVI

It all stared in 2008 with a vacation to the British Virgin Islands.  Terry and Christine invited us and two other couples to charter a 48′ catamaran that came with a captain.  We needed a captain because none of us knew diddly squat about how to operate a sailboat, let alone one that big.  Besides, this captain was quite familiar with the area and was a wonderful guide and we needed him for that, too.  Despite our floating adventure in the islands being cut short by hurricane Omar (and that’s a whole other story), I really enjoyed the time on the water and became fascinated with sailing and sailboats.  I did a lot of research on line, learning about boat and sailing lingo, boat parts, knots, reading sailing stories and blogs of sailing families and such.  The more I read the more I wanted to learn and do.  Best of all was that Judith is on board with this also.

Simon Cowell's ship at Barbados

We went on a week-long cruise to the Caribbean in a big cruise ship in late 2009. Although those boats are much more stable than the catamaran we chartered in the BVI, while it was under way I could feel the smooth rocking of the vessel pushing through the waves.  Pure relaxing bliss.  One of the excursions was in Barbados where we had a locally prepared home-made lunch on a catamaran and went snorkeling with sea turtles.  How cool is that!

We talked about going back to the BVI for another week vacation, but this time we didn’t want to hire a skipper.  We wanted to skipper a boat by ourselves.  That’s what’s called a bareboat charter.  You rent a big boat out and sail around with you and your friends as the captain and after a week you bring the boat back.  Here’s the rub though, no charter company will rent you their $350,000 boat if you don’t have bareboat experience.  Kind of like how does one get a job without experience, and how do you get experience if you can’t get a job?  So here’s how, you go and get yourself educated and take classes for bareboat certification.

Judith and I discussed taking introductory sailing classes locally, and with a bit of research we decided on Island Bound Adventures on Lake Grapevine.  American Sailing Association class 101 – Basic Keelboat.  Four hours of class time, two days on the water.  And naturally we signed up for class with our friends Terry and Christine; we are still all in this together.  You have to identify boat parts, tie knots, learn points of sail, right of way, safety requirements, U.S. Coast Guard regulations, and much, much more.  The study and training materials arrived in the mail and we dove into it straight away.

Island Bound Adventures Sailing School

ASA 101 class was fun, the weather was almost perfect and we all had a great time learning and piloting.  The instructors at Island Bound are excellent – patient, knowledgeable, and fun; they do enjoy getting to share their passion with newbies like us.  We all passed the exam with high marks but as I eeked out a one point higher grade than Judith… well, the challenge is on for the next batch of exams.

Now that I had the basic sailing class under my belt, I wanted to get back out on the water soon.  Hence the Hobie Cat purchase.

The next classes that are required are ASA 103 and 104.  ASA 103 is Basic Coastal Cruising.  ASA 104 is Bareboat Chartering (Intermediate Coastal Cruising).  Usually these classes are offered separately, but we found a sail school on the Gulf coast that combines them both at the same time.  It takes a long weekend for this combo, so we have to take a day or two of vacation from work.  But it also saves a few dollars because the cost of the combined class is less than the total cost of these two courses separately at other sail schools.

We’re very excited.