Day 1 a Success!

Well, we survived day one and, honestly, we are feeling pretty good about the whole sailing thing right now!  So much to tell, I'm not sure where to start.  As we sit here on the bow of our temporary home and feel the breeze blowing gently across our bodies, there's just so much we want to say!  I guess the beginning is a good place so we'll start 'er up there.  I was born a coal miner's daughter.........

Last night, we found out that our room was perfectly situated next to the mechanical room that operated the nearby elevator.  We can now tell you that we've conducted a complete study of the operational hours of the elevator during the hours of 10 and 7.  Yep, I think you can sum up our elevator experience with "we got the shaft!"

I hope this picture turns out but this massive boat is going across our bow right now.  It's the Key West Express and it's massive!  So cool!  And here we are, just two sillies from Alabama taking pictures of their boat as they pass by.  Pretty sure the mic guy said, "and on your right you'll see people taking pictures of us in the dark, fully knowing they won't turn out."  (Will try to post a picture from my phone as the internet connection is sketchy at best).

Ok, back to the day's events.  So, we got an excellent head start on the day since we weren't sleeping and we arrived at the dock early to meet our instructor, Mark.  For those of you who know Beth, you'll know that she's kinda throbby about accents so naturally Mark is from England.  He's been in the US for 20 years but the accent is still very heavy.  Superb guy - we leared more from him in a few hours than we did in 3 days from our previous lessons.  We like him a bunch (well, except for the annoying swooning the Beth does each time Mark speaks)! 

We went over the boat's operational information and "checked it out" and then we were off and running.  The first order of the day was to top off the tanks with diesel so we puttered over to the station just down the way.  I was driving and was able to gently "feather" our 47 foot cat into the station without incident.  Well, mostly.  As we were filling up with diesel, suddenly a tactical team from SWAT zoomed up and began practicing boarding a casino boat that was within 50 yard of our position.  Pretty cool!  

Next, I navigated us out of the channel and we began tacking and jibing.  To you land lubbers, that simply means turning the boat upwind (tacking) or downwind (jibing).  My favorite command is the ever famous "Jibe Ho!!!"  I think Beth takes offense to that one each time I scream it and inflex on the "ho" part!  :)

Beth worked the sheets (lines) today for the first time and quickly became a pro.  I'm still struggling with a couple of knots and tie ups but will continue practicing until they become second nature.  We probably sailed for just a couple of hours but now we can't wait to get back out there again.  We'll head out into the gulf tomorrow and complete around a 20 mile trek into the Captiva Island area.  Awesome day - learned a bunch and we like our instructor a lot!  Couldn't ask for more.  Well, trying to keep it short (fail) but I hope you guys are having a great evening.  We are living the dream right now and are ready for more fun tomorrow...