A Trip Recap and What's Next

As I sit here, wishing I was back on the bow of the Anan Cara - our 47 foot catamaran slice of heaven - it occurs to me that some wannabe sailors like us might stumble across this blog and they might have a few questions about the sailing course itself.  It also occurs to me that perhaps I should devote one final blog post to recap our adventure and set the stage for what's next.  We've been asked "what's next for you" by nearly everyone we know so I'll use this  space and time to answer that question, as well.  So, here's a bit of a Post Mortem on our sailing lessons with the Colgate Offshore Sailing School in Q and A form (just to spice things up).

Q:  Dear Concussed Couple - So what was Beth's "go to" word when she smacked her head on the bimini? Oh, and can you show us a picture of the bimini because we really weren't able to picture it?  Thanks, Nearly Everyone Who Read Your Blog.

A:  Great question, Nearly Everyone!  I'm afraid that, much like kissing and telling, I am not allowed to give out her "go to" sailor slang for the deadly blue assassin known as the #@$%@% bimini.  Beth is a southern lady, you know.  However, I can definitely provide you all with a better picture of our tormentor, the blue canvas of pain better known as the bimini.  Here's a picture of it:

The bimini is the blue canvas cover above the cockpit area.  The cockpit area is a step below everything else around the deck so, in this picture, you can see that Beth's shins adn feet are not shown.  That's because the cockpit area is sunken down beneath the helm (steering wheel).  See the metal pipes that are above her head that support the blue cover?  They really do hurt like a #@$$#@@!er when you step up from the cockpit to the helm!

Q:  Dear Captains (and may we call you captains?) - Why did you choose the Offshore Sailing School?

A:  I believe to truly be called a captain, you have to pass a US Coast Guard test if I'm not mistaken.  But, if we are behind the wheel of your boat, we'll respond to being called "captain" or most anything else - especially if you have an extra beverage in your hand for us!  As for choosing the Colgate Offshore Sailing School, Beth's sales job takes her into different doctor's offices and one of the docs is an avid sailor.  He highly recommended the Colgate school and said if we were going to do it then we should do it right!  Previously, Beth and I passed the ASA 101 and 103 (ASA is a sailing institution akin to US Sailing) courses from a freelance guy and, while we saved a bunch of money by going that route, we really didn't feel as though we received the thorough and professional instruction that we needed.  The ocean and mother nature are to be respected, if not feared, so we took our certifications very seriously and sought the best and most thorough (and professional) class we could take.  Sure Colgate's course costs a little more money but it was more than worth it in the end.  The instruction was outstanding and the class was top notch!  Now we, too, would highly recommend and encourage anyone wanting to follow in our footsteps to use the Offshore Sailing School for your classes (so long as they are not in the June, July and August time frame)!

Q:  Was it awesome being out there on the boat?

A:  Without a doubt.  Better than you can even imagine.  I love the freedom.  I love the lifestyle.  I love the exploring - either by catamaran or by dinghy.  Exploring islands, seeing dolphins, emerald green waters and sandy beaches - that was a blast and I don't know when that would ever get tiresome.  Raising the sails, tacking, and jibing are all pretty straightforward so performing these tasks was not taxing in the least.  There's a tremendous feeling that overwhelms you when it's just you, the boat and mother nature pushing you along the water.  I'd say the only things that were rough were the small hand pump toilets and being bathed in your own sweat after your fourth docking practice.  Typically, you only dock once a day (or less if you are living on the hook) so I think that part shouldn't be a big deal, right?  Anyway, the trip was awesome and we both feel it was even better (the trip and the class) than we ever possibly imagined it would be!

Q:  Ok, so what's next for you two?

A:  Ahh yes.  That's a great question!  We have a license to bareboat now so it only makes sense for us to find a catamaran somewhere and sail the heck out of it, right?  Well, so far it's been VERY tough to find anyone between Gulf Shores and Apalachicola who is willing to bareboat charter a catamaran.  There just aren't that many folks who are willing to hand over the keys to a 200+K boat to someone they've never met!  What we are really looking for is a place where we can drive to (the Gulf Coast) so that we can take a cat out on a day sail several times during the year just to get out feet wet and gain more experience.  After conquering that, the next step would be to do some overnight trips.  Then, we want to fly to the BVI's and spend and entire week bareboating a catamaran!  But, anyway, first and foremost we need to find something semi-local and sail it several times to build up our confidence.  You gotta crawl before you run, right?

Q:  Are you kids gonna buy a boat?

A:  Ha!  Are you kids gonna give us some money?  The Anan Cara, the boat we were on, is a 2006 Lagoon 47 catamaran.  I just looked up how much a 2005 Lagoon 47 costs.  Any guesses how much????  200?  No.  300?  Nope.  If you said $385,200 then you are right!!!!  Now for us, we really are only looking in the 38 foot range but, still, a 38 footer costs between 200K and 250K which is the equivalent of the cost of a nice house!  So, until we are ready to live on a cat full time then it really doesn't make any sense for us to buy one - at least not until we win the lottery.  By the way - anyone know when the next Powerball is happening?

In closing, the Offshore Sailing School was a tremendous experience that provided a whole new world of opportunities for us to explore.  To me, this was an investment in the future and now our future is unlimited!  We can now travel anywhere in the world and charter a boat to explore new lands.  These new lands can be something as glamorous as the Greek Isles or they can be something as fun, new and simple as Captiva or Sanibel island.  It's a whole new way to see the world and we are so excited about the unlimited possibilities we now have in our possession!

So, if you are thinking about doing what we did then we'd both encourage you to go for it!  In fact, I'd just close with this:  If there is something you want to do - whether it's sailing or some other passion you might have - then I'd simply ask what are you waiting for?  Life is too short to sit on your hands and daydream about your passions.  I hate to go all Carpe Diem on you but, honestly, what are you waiting for?  Get out there!  Do your thing!  Live your dreams!  And, if you fail, at least you can know that you gave it your all, right?  No regrets!  So, again, what are you waiting for?  CARPE DIEM!

So, best of luck to you in all your endeavors - we hope to see you on the water soon!
Stephen and Beth - Captain Extraordinaires

Emptying Out the Camera

First off, I have to send out a heart felt thank you for those of you who have commented on our trip, our pictures and our good fortune.  Your feedback encouraged me to put up a post each night even when we were dog tired and ready to go to bed.  This is Beth as she "patiently" waits for me to finish up a blog for the night...

 Each and every one of you that I have talked to has requested the same thing - MORE pictures!!!  I finally downloaded the pics from the camera (honestly, the silly iPhone 4S takes as good of pictures) so here ya go (with the necessary commentary, of course)...

Each day started with working thru an exhaustive checklist.  This catamaran was massive - so massive that to check the oil in each engine, you had to climb down into the port and starboard compartments.  See?

 Beth is actually standing on the engine there in that one - you can climb down all the way in there and be gone from sight!  Next, we see the main sail and it's halyard on the side.  To raise the main sail, there were two electric winches that were powered by stepping on an electric button.  Really cool! (buttons not shown)

When we first set foot on the boat, we were pretty intimidated by the size of it!  Then, when you see the lines pictured below, you are like "wtf?"  This boat was much more complicated than the 30 foot Endeavor cat we were on previously.  You can see the two electric winch buttons in the pic below - very helpful and necessary when dealing with this size cat with these massive sails and tension.

 You even had to put the traveller on the electric winches as well...

 These were all taken on our 30 mile sail up to Useppa Island.  The shots are all of Captiva or North Captiva Island, I believe.

 Here's a shot of the very open saloon area on the Lagoon 47...

 Shots from Useppa Island.  The first two shots show the other boats that were also anchored there.

 Shots from anchoring off of Boca Grande...

 Dolphin!

Next, I took these while we were on our dinghy ride into Boca Grande...

Once on the ground, we walked around the "downtown" area and it was more than charming.  Awesome little beach town - no gas stations or anything that would be a chain.  Very quaint and awesome...

So that's all the good stuff - here are just a few other shots of interest...

 Here's a shot of our last night that we spent on the bow of the big cat.  While a picture is worth a thousand words, a thousand words can't describe how perfect this night was.  The perfect ending to a perfect beginning...

Day 6 - the final half day of our sailing lessons

Whew!  I had every intention of posting our Day 6 update last night but, shamefully, our Saturday night in the fast lane consisted of going to Ybor City to enjoy some hard earned pizza and beer at 4:30 PM and that's pretty much where we crashed.  We were back at the hotel by 7:00 and fast asleep by.........8:30!!!!  It could have been the beer, it could have been exhaustion or it could have simply been the fact that we were sleeping on a comfortable king size bed for the first time in six nights.  Whatever the reason, we were out like a light!  I know, it's shameful.  I really wanted to catch up with a buddy of mine in Tampa but we just couldn't pull it together last night...

So, Saturday was our final half day on the boat.  Mark came on board a little before 8 AM and graded our tests.  As he'd suspected all along, we passed with flying colors!  Mark is truly a terrific instructor as he taught us things that were "by the book" but he also taught us some other equally effective tricks of the trade.

For instance, in sailing, there are a couple of different maneuvers for picking up a "man overboard" which are the quick stop and the figure eight.  By the way, I asked Mark why they call it MAN overboard - don't the women ever go over?  He then asked me if I knew what the #1 reason that causes someone (men) to fall overboard.  What do you think it is???  Well, if you guessed it's when men are peeing off the stern then you win a prize!!!!!!!  That's the #1 reason that people fall off the boat - and by "people" of course I mean men.  So ladies, no reason to be jealous of us when we go behind a tree or a bush.  At some point if we are on a boat then peeing in public will be our undoing...

Anyway, so each of the man overboard situations requires sailing away from the person in the water and that makes me a bit uncomfortable.  So, Mark showed us a method where we turn into the wind and backwind the jib so that the boat comes to a fast halt.  At that point, you turn the engines on and gently use a little reverse while the wind blows you right back to the person overboard.  It's awesome!  Here's us picking up our flag named Oscar - he evidently was peeing off our stern...

So, we passed our test and as a reward, we got the chance to perform more docking practice!  There was absolutely no breeze to speak of so it pretty much kicked our tails.  We performed four of these with each of  us getting to try a bow first docking situation and then a stern first attempt.  You'd think stern first might be more difficult but it's actually the preferred method as the weight of the boat is on the stern so you have much more control.  But why is it so laborious?  First, you must attach your bow line and your forward spring line to the same piling if going in bow first.  Then the captain uses those lines to bring the stern in and you can then attach your stern line and aft spring line.  Here's an attempt to show you the lines:

See the blue line going to the opposite cleat of the stern?  It doesn't start there.  It starts on the boat's cleat next to the piling and then you move it across to the other cleat.  It's heavy and even heavier when wet so on the fourth round of docking practice, these suckers are heavy!  Here's a shot of the red bow line which also starts on the cleat next to the piling and then, too, is moved across the boat.

Lastly, here's a shot of the forward spring line which is in it's final resting place.  It doesn't start here, either.  In fact, all four lines start in one place but then have to be moved to other places, sometimes multiple times!  You may have a hard time seeing this line - it's white and blue and leads alongside the boat to the left of the yellow throw float:

So, after three docking practices, we were spent.  As we worked thru the math as to how to now spring off the dock using only two lines (and how to free up the cleats for those two lines), we were tired, frustrated and a mess.  About that time, some jackass in a little motorboat eased up to us and yelled, "hey captain, can you move your boat to the other dock?"  Um, little man, we: A) have a class going on here; B) it's a public dock so first come first serve and C) DO YOU NOT SEE THE SIZE OF THIS CATAMARAN?  As it turned out, this jackass was the lead scout for a flotilla of elderly that suddenly was coming in all around us.  One of the boats was a large 45 foot motorboat that had a ton of people on it and you could tell they were confused as to what to do as the captain brought the boat in to dock.  Mark said, "let's sit back and watch them for a bit, shall we?"  LETS!  There was absolutely no communication between the captain and his passengers.  There was only one guy even holding a line and he looked bewildered as the captain slowly turned the boat completely around in a circle at the side of the dock.  This moron darn near beached the thing as we kicked back and laughed at this Cocoon Cluster.  Listen, we may not have our docking lines down to a fine science but after seen this kind of stupidity we suddenly felt a whole lot more knowledgeable - and strangely refreshed!!!!!

So at the end of the day we had both passed all of our tests so here's where we stand:  Beth has certifications in Basic Keelboat, Basic Cruising and a Catamaran Endorsement.  In addition to these, I have a Bareboat Cruising cert to go with my previous ASA 101 and 103 certifications.  What does all this mean?  We're ready to charter a boat and we can do so anywhere in the world that we want to go - so let's go sailing!

Day 5 Complete

Tonight's post will be a bit short as it's late and time for bed. We will be up at 7:30 tomorrow and will begin our final half day at 8:00. Our goal is to have the boat ready to go when Mark gets here which means working thru  an extensive checklist of things to do before getting under way.

This morning, I had to navigate our 47 foot cat out of our slip backwards in order to pivot in a tiny canal so that we could get pointed out into the channel. Oh, and I wasn't allowed to hit the boat next to us, either!  

That's the other boat on the left. It's actually a nice sized monohull but next to us it looks like our dinghy.

Naturally, there was an audience aboard the monohull this morning and they all gathered and watched with great anticipation to see how this was thing was going to go down. There were probably 5 or 6 folks watching me do this  so no pressure!  

It's a powerful feeling when you can conquer your fears.  Before this week began, there was no freaking way I would have gotten behind the wheel of this beast to embark on such a futile mission of ineptitude.  But, today I calmly and beautifully left the canal (backwards) and the monohull behind me as the folks aboard it applauded us and said they were envious of the big cat's turning radius. It's hard to describe the feeling but suffice it to say I am feeling good about it!!!

Incidentally, we each took tests today and passed so now there is just one more to take tomorrow and we'll have our certification to charter a boat anywhere in the world by ourselves (called bareboating - I'd hoped bareboating meant something else)!  Of course, we will be looking for some folks to go with so let us know!

So, I have told you guys about Beth's many brushes, er, impacts with the $&@&$$&!! Bimini, right? Today it only happened twice so we are considering that progress.  She's probably concussed so she doesn't know anything different - she thinks that's progress, too.  But, what about the bane of my existence on board? What do I dislike about the trip????

Glad you asked!  I have a blister on my hand and it is pretty sore. But, it's not from the sails, the lines, the halyards or any of that. Nope! Instead, it's from this:

See the handle on the right? To pump water in the bowl, you use the handle up and down numerous times. To pump the deposits, you use the handle, again, numerous times.  And, when I sit on the toilet it at 6'1, 215 my backside pretty much engulfs the little thing and my left leg ends up landing squarely on, you guessed it, the handle. Beth hates the little booger, too, because when you pee in the middle of the night the last thing you want is a workout from pumping that handle up and down!  Ugh. Where is the dislike button....?

I will post a ton of pics tomorrow that I downloaded from my camera as hopefully we will have wifi at the hotel. But, tonight I will leave you with the thoughts of seeing dolphins when you wake up and dolphins when you come in to the harbor at the end if the day. And, in between, it's even better!  

Last pic for today - here is a pretty genoa sail we hoisted during some downwind sailing today....

Day 4...or is it 3...or 5?

Tonight's blog is coming to you from our cat located at the South Seas Marina in Captiva Island.  The days are kinda running together out here on our little 47 foot slice of heaven but we hear it's what the working stiffs call Thursday.  Sigh.  We only have a couple of days left on our sailing course and that's a bit sad. We've accomplished so much yet there's so much that we still want to accomplish.  There's still so much that we want to perfect.  So much we still want to master.  But, we continue to stay on the right side of the water and we haven't even come close to falling off.  Under our measure, that's what we consider the ultimate success!

Let's talk about docking versus dropping the hook today, shall we?  Two nights ago we dropped the hook, or anchored as you might call it, in a lovely little place called Cabbage Key.  We took a sunset dinghy ride over and had ourselves a few drinks and a few laughs.  Last night, we once again dropped the hook - this time in an anchorage off the very scenic and ritzy Boca Grande.  There, we dropped the anchor as we faced a westerly wind and though it took a couple of minutes to "bite", eventually the anchor dug in and we were stopped.  However, as we came back from Boca Grande, the wind had changed into an easterly wind.  Thankfully the anchor once again set nicely, even with the turn of the winds, and we settled in for a peaceful sleep.  Except, we once again didn't sleep.  I was worried about the anchor, as the last words from Mark as he departed was "who's got the first anchor watch?"  Hmm.  We hadn't had one of those yet and I wondered if that meant that we needed to stand guard.  It turned out we didn't, as the anchor held superbly.  A wonderful breeze eventually cooled the cabin and we were able to sleep a few hours in spite of my paranoia. This was us at anchor:

So, on the hook means that you are not at a dock or marina.  At a marina, that is where you get your creature comforts such as air conditioning and an abundant supply of running water.  On the hook means you are basically at an elaborate camp out where the only running water comes from a limited supply and there is absolutely no air conditioning.  A word to those who are thinking about doing this trip - avoid the months of July, August and September.  June is iffy, as well.  Thankfully, this May trip has had superb weather.

Dropping the hook is just about as simple as it sounds.  Drop hook.  Splash.  Ease back and make sure it holds.  Nothing to it, right?  Docking at a marina (where the AC, water and 110 volt outlets are) brings good things to the boat but boy what a process it is to tie up.  As I was absolutely bathed in the most massive flop sweat I have ever felt, I was thinking "man, we didn't have to do this crap the last couple of days!"  The process isn't all that complicated but it's certainly labor intensive unless you are the captain.  The captain sits in the cockpit and watches you as you scurry from cleat to piling to cleat to piling to cleat to piling, etc.  At the end of your time, your cat is snug as a bug but, my God, what it takes to get it that way is HOT in the summer.  Did I mention not to do this in July?  Whoa...

So, the pluses to dropping the hook are the ease, the serenity and the fact that the no-see-ums (tiny little bugs with a big bite similar to a mosquito) don't go out there to feed on human flesh.  The down side is the lack of AC, 110 volts and abundant water.  A marina has all those things but they charge by the foot and they supply a vast amount of no-see-ums that make it difficult to sit in the cabin and have a lovely evening dinner. 

So, that's a comparison - I think Beth and I both prefer the hook, to be honest.  Anyway, today we motorsailed most of the day and when we got to the resort here (which is spectacular, by the way), we practiced our docking maneuvers.  Beth isn't a fan of boat traffic and Mark asked her to guide us into a narrow channel to dock the boat.  Beth was able to overcome her fears and guided us in perfectly and then sat back and watched me run my own "special" version of a Chinese fire drill as I moved our lines around to tie up to the dock.  Ahhh, good times....unless you were running the dock lines like I was! Afterwards, we hit the beach and enjoyed a lovely sunset...

Meanwhile, I have bounced back and become a champion knot maker!  Not being able to do this was frustrating the crap out of me so I'm thankful for Mark for sitting down and working with me until it became second nature.  Meanwhile, Beth has become quite adept at hitting her head hard on the bimini and her sailor talk is really rounding into form!  :)

In our normal life, Beth and I make a great team and out here on the water, it's no different.  In the few areas she is weak, I am strong and where I am weak, she is strong.  Together, we feel as though we can accomplish anything and this week we have been challenged like never before and we have more than just succeeded!

Tomorrow, we'll sail back to the Pink Shell and we'll have to take two more tests.  Mark is supremely confident that we'll pass and, honestly, I think we are, too!  Best wishes to all - here is the English pub that our English captain took us too - big fun!

BTW - the boat's name is Anam Cara which in Ireland means "Soul Mate" - we think it's pretty fitting for us.....