Finished up my ASA 101 class today.  I did end up passing and getting my certification. I missed a few on the written test but I felt pretty good about it.  The ones I missed were pretty much guesses.  I hadn't studied bouy's as well as I could have nor indicator lights.  I felt very good about the practical portion of the evaluation.

I guess the way it works is during the two days of instruction and sailing the instructor is evaluating how you implement his lessons.  I felt like I was picking up the concepts pretty quickly.  Several times during the two days I thought back on the day of sailing I had with Kurt.  That was a definite help to me and kind of put me ahead of the game just a bit.

Today we spent more time sailing.  While the wind still waited till almost noon to pick up we had more of it so the sailing was more interesting.  Our primary maneuver was the Man Over Board drill.  The technique we were taught is called the figure 8 method. I won't get into the details but we started the maneuver from numerous points of sail and each of us had several opportunities to play every role in the evolution.  We found a can floating in the bay, we snatched it up this became our MOB.  Actually over the last two days we picked up several pieces of trash from the bay.

We also practiced reefing the main.  While this topic isn't specifically covered under ASA 101, it was interesting to try.  Another fun evolution we all got a chance to perform was Heave To.  Intially I couldn't get the boat to stop and drift to leeward, but then I just let it sit in the heave to configuration.  She swung back and forth fore to aft a couple of times then just settled in.  It was a very natural feeling once it happened and seeing the boat stop put a smile on my face. 

All of our time sailing was on the south side of the bridge.  I am taking the little family out tomorrow so maybe we'll pop under the bridge then.

Speaking of sailing tomorrow, I've talked everyone into going sailing with me tomorrow, my first day as a certified sailor.  On the way home tonight I stopped by Sports Authority and picked up a little tiny Type II life vest for Madison.

In case anyone is interested the text book for this class is Sailing Fundamentals by Gary Jobson.  I remember Gary Jobson as one of the commentators of the America's Cup races in San Diego.   

So that's it.  I'm certified.  I'm hesitant to call myself Captain Ray.  Skipper Ray maybe?  Sailor Ray? hmmm, well, I'll think on that one more but for now I don't think I'm Seaman Ray any longer...

Ciao,
Sailor Ray 

Yes, as a matter of fact I have subscribed to every sailing magazine I can get my hands on...  What can I say?  That's just how I roll...  If can't do something right now at least I can read about it.

For me a magazine is a couple hours at best so they don't last long.  Therefore I need more reading material.  Lately I've been trying to watch less TV and get more use out of my time.  I'm not always successful but that's neither here nor there.

Mandi sends me bookstore coupons regularly. The bookstore is but a few blocks from work so sometimes I wander over there and puruse the Sports/Sailing section.  For some reason I have not gravitated to titles like "Epic Sea Adventures" "Survival at Sea" "I almost died at sea" "My sailboat tried to kill me" etc...  I don't think these titles lying around the house will help my cause with the little woman.  So I tend to look for stuff like "The Nirvana of sailing" "How sailing strengthens relationships" "Sailors get blown more" or "A couples fastrack guide to sailing"  These will help me more.  Obviously I didn't find these specific titles...  :)

The first book I bought was The Cruising Life.  This book is helpful in forming a plan to get out cruising.  A large percentage of the book is on how to build a cruising kitty.  It then goes into the boat you need vs. the boat you want. At length it covers other specific cruising issues like sailing skills, provisioning, etc.

I found the financial portion both enlightening and discouraging.  Of course the discouraging part was mainly due to my semi-dismal financial situation.  Though it can be motivational in that the book can help you build a strategy and provides methods and suggestions to help you get to your goals.

I also picked up a book I'd been reading about in blogs and elsewhere online.  Jimmy Cornell has been studying trends in cruising for some time and he's put together a few separate resources that are great for one planning to cross oceans.  The information in his books and website are a bit advanced for me at this point considering the time frame I may actually begin looking for a boat.

Since this wouldn't be the first time I put the cart before the horse I found his World Cruising Essentials very interesting indeed.  It's filled with information from people actually out cruising regarding the gear, crewing, provisioning, personality issues, navigation, and best practices that work for them.  The information is from both modern sailors and folks that have been around a bit longer and who have perhaps a different view on things.  I enjoyed both perspectives.  This is almost a text book on cruising and I'll be using this one more and more as time goes by and I get closer to buying, outfitting, and casting off on my own boat.

A companion title to World Cruising Essentials is World Cruising Routes which is just that.  This book is basically a detailed description of every major cruising route in the world.  Sure there are a lot of different ways to get from point A to point B but here Jimmy Cornell gives the common routes, and why they are the common routes.  Like anything else when it comes to directions, you take it all with a grain of sea salt.

But it's insightful to know that if you want to cruise from San Diego to Hawaii and back that you may run into moorage issues in the islands. Then getting back will take you on a track far removed from a direct line.   This book will help you understand why you'll encounter these issues. Again, this was a cart before the horse purchase but it's fun to pull it out when I'm looking at my giant map...

As I've mentioned before one of the earliest thoughts I had on the topic of crossing oceans was about what kind of boat could I do this safely, reasonably quickly - in that speed can be a safety issue, and comfortably - so that my wife will go with me...  I picked up The Best Used Boats Notebook. This book has been a great source of enjoyment.  Basically it's a shopping list for used boats that someone else, with the experience and knowledge, has deemed sea worthy!  The best section is the "And 10 boats I'd sail around the world on"

From this book I've been able to decide if I had the money I would first buy a Catalina 30.  We would proceed to sail this boat as much as possible spending up to a weekend with the family on it.  When we were ready to think about heading out across the great blue horizon we would buy a Peterson 44.  Cart before the horse?  Sure, but this whole exercise is a dream anyway.  Why not dream about the details as much as the big picture?

So this is my short list of current reading material.  I imagine that my sailing library will grow just as fast as my wife sends me the next book store coupon...

Ciao,
Seaman Ray

Okay, how DOES someone go about learning how to sail???

I have found a few options.

• Know somebody with a boat who will take you out.  I actually do know somebody with a boat who would be more than willing to take me out, teach me how to sail, and even bring me back!  Problem is he lives in Oakland and I live in San Diego.  An eight hour commute one way just to go sailing is a bit tough to swallow, and yes I have considered it.  I've also broached the subject of moving to Oakland with the little woman...
• Buy a boat and go learn how to sail on your own.  I mean, come on!  How hard can it really be???  Wind, Sails, Keel, Rudder, Lift...  Nothing to it!  Oh okay, there is more to it than that.  Here's the catch.  Those bastard insurance agent won't insure you if you don't know how to sail.  If you don't have insurance those Marina bastard's won't let you park your boat in their slips!  Bastards!  Then there is, of course, the vastly increased potential for you to screw up and sink your brand new purchase and endanger those dumb enough to get aboard with you...
• Take lessons at an aquatic center like Mission Bay Aquatic Center.  This is a pretty nice option.  The price is reasonable and they offer several classes that build your skill set over time.  The only down side is renting boats.  Seems like the only time you would sail is during a class.
• Join a sailing club that offers classes and good rates on boat rental.  This one looks like a winner to me.  I've come across several sailing clubs in San Diego.  Harbor Yacht Club looks like a great club.  Their insurance requires all members to have at least US Boat Basic Keel Boat certification.  Because of that they offer that cerfication class free to new members.  Of course free after a $400 down payment...  But looks like a nice club.  These guys look pretty cool too Harbor Sail Boats They too offer the Basic Keel Boat certification upon joining.  When I was walking at lunch the other day I popped in on these guys, they are in Sea Port Village a few blocks from where I work: Seaforth Sailing Club I like them because they are close to where I work and they have really reasonable prices.  They also include a Basic Keel Boat cert upon joining.  Each club also offers more advanced classes and certifications to build ones skills safely.

The sailing club definitely looks like the way to go for me right now.  A quick peek at numbers reveals that slip fees for a 30 foot boat on San Diego Bay is going to run $300 to $350 a month.  Sailing even two or three times a month in one of those sailing clubs won't even be half that.  So it's a no brainer at this point.

The San Diego Boat show is coming right after the new year so if I haven't joined a club by then I hope to talk to them all at the show.

Fare winds and following seas,
Seaman Ray

Where to start?

It seems like whenever I wish to start a new project I begin with the end game and work back from there.  I guess that makes some sense because it would seem a bit odd to decide on a goal based on the steps it takes to get there.  Then again that method could be used to refine a decision.  I'm not at the refining stage yet.

So my thought process to this "project" started with:  Hey, wouldn't it be cool to ride a boat through the Panama Canal?  After a little research I discover that you have to be either going from the Atlantic to the Pacific or visa versa to utilize the canal.  I know, obviously! right?  Well, the point is that unless you plan on going through the canal twice, at twice the price and excitement, once through you are potentially on the wrong side of South America to go home.

A little more research provides the discovery that the vast majority of cruisers cruise east to west in the tropics.  Why?  Well, that's the direction the trade winds blow in the tropics.  So now, I need to get on the other side of South America, me being on the west coast of the US, to go through the Canal in the correct direction.  I'm using an extremely liberal interpretation of Correct in this instance.  Taking the east to west travel direction a step further, by the time I will be ready to pass through the waist of two continents I need to have already traveled 7/8ths around the world.  Huh, seems like a lot of effort to just go through the Panama Canal, no?

Wait a minute!!!  What if, stay with me here; what if the goal were to circumnavigate the globe???  Then the Canal would only be a single slice of a larger pumpkin pie.  For me there's nothing like obsoleting an idea with a bigger idea.

Okay, so now I have my real goal and I'll be hard pressed to obsolete this one with a bigger one so I'm assuming we're done with the brainstorming portion of the excercise.

From this point I jump immediately to two things, neither of which is actually learning how to sail! Firstly, where are we gonna go?  That's what the 38" by 50" map in my living room is for.  I mounted this map on cork and foam board and it now has a couple dozen colored push-pins poking out of it.  The second item I jump too is which boat are we going to take and what are we going to name it???

Now you may not believe this but you can actually buy a sail boat for anywhere from $5,000 to several million dollars.  From 15 feet to 100 feet or more!  I'm going to limit my search to something in between those extremes...  I gave a half hearted attempt at thinking up fun boat names.  Without even the most remote possibility of a boat being purchased in the near to intermediate future I lost interest in that one for now.

I guess my point at this time is my idea board looks like a large piece of paper with a few large basically empty circles on it labeled:  BOAT, DESTINATIONS.  No SAILING SKILLS, FINANCES, PROVISIONING etc...  Details?  We don't need no stinkin details!  In the Navy we had a saying: Don't sweat the small stuff.  I'm taking that to heart so far but that shouldn't really last much longer...  Talking the little woman into this adventure is going to require a few more details...

Ciao,
Seaman Ray

My head is all over the place.  Ever feel like there is so much information on a topic that you don't know, yet can find, that you can't figure out where to look?  If I were Rummy I might think that I know there are things that I know I don't know and there are things I don't know that I don't know...  Yeah, that's about how I've been feeling lately.

I've decided that if all the stars were to align and every other element of matter were to coalesce into a synergistic structure that would affect fate in such a way as to allow for the possibility, I would like to sail around the world.  I understand there is a lot standing in my way, not the least of which is the fact that I don't know how to sail, nor does anyone in my home.  My father-in-law sails...  I'm feeling some FIL ass kissing in my future...  But that in the face of all else in my way seems trivial, and perhaps the easiest to overcome.

Lets consider what else could be in my way:

Does my wife want to go around the world in a tiny sailboat?  Living in it for anywhere from 2 to 5 years?  Only having brief visits home in that time and mostly living near third world countries, or at least the third world elements of many modern countries.  Does she want to spend upwards of 25 days at sea when crossing an ocean in possibly lumpy, or worse, seas?  Cook in a house that's rolling at 20^o to each side?  Stand watches outside in the rain in the middle of the night? Truthfully I think I can overcome this one.  It's all in the presentation... :D

Does my son want to go with, perhaps delaying college a few years, and be crew for anywhere from 2 to 5 years while he sails around the world with his family?  Hell yes he does!  That's my boy!

Does my daughter, all of one month old, want to begin her schooling on a boat, forsaking any friendships she's developed by the time we depart?  Bah!  I'll be Captain Ray by then and Seaman Recruit Madison will simply deal with the realities of her existence!  Wow!  I'm really feeling better about this whole thing already!

Okay, this is big one.  How would I finance this whole she-bang?  Not only would I have to purchase a well found and safe blue water capable boat; Nay, that alone would be easy!  I am currently buried under a house and mortgage that has been ravaged in value by the current recession, as are a majority of home owners in the US right now.  But if only that were the completeness of the financial challenges, still I would feel reasonably confident.  No...  Ray Ray has been a little cavalier in his spending habits over the years so the hole has been dug quite a bit deeper...  Does this discourage me to the point of not dreaming?  Hardly!  Not only Where there's a will there's a way but Necessity is the mother of invention.  And that is something I have truly believed for a long time!  I mean I never even thought about creating a dropdown list with color coded entries until a user requested it.  Sounded assinine to me at the time, but I built that sucker!  I have had a use for it exactly once but that's not the point!

And finally what could quite possibily be the biggest obstacle to this whole nutty dream:  What to do with all the shit I've accumulated over the past 42 years!

So here I am with a dream and little else.  Far greater things have been built on less...

Ciao,
The Future Capt. Ray