34
Hey, guess what's not as easy as it looks? Bill and I are taking sailing lessons from MlT (it's free for students and a guest!) and we had our first experience on the water yesterday. I was originally hesitant to take this class because I was a wee bit intimidated by the pre-class handout. There's so much terminology and lingo and knots. Not to mention the phrase "death roll or capsize" was used a fair number of times. Bill kept saying, "Ah come on, it'll be fun! Just relax."
After yesterday I'm no longer afraid of drowning while trapped in a soggy sail below an overturned boat. But it's not really the peaceful float on a river that either of us imagined it to be. It's work! When we climbed back on dock, both of us had wobbly legs -- not sea legs, but tired tired crouching muscles. And it's a lot of thinking too. Maybe that will improve once we have a better feel for things, but right now my brain is constantly going "wind blowing this direction; need to tack; tack by turning into the wind; push the tiller away; scoot over; need the wind to blow across the side of the boat; wind blowing this direction."
It didn't help, I don't think, that there was no wind yesterday. That may seem like a perfect time to learn, but it's not. It's just frustrating. It's like learning how to drive a car without turning it on. Put it in neutral and a guy pushes from behind. It won't really teach you anything. Except patience and humility.
I think when we sail around the world (as was the reason for taking lessons, of course), we may hire a skipper and a crew and we'll concentrate on fishing and cooking. Yeah, that's the ticket.