Episode 1 - Introductory Sailing Lesson

So... Donna and I decided that taking sailing lessons seemed like a great idea. Who knows how far this crazy thing will go? Our lesson with Gord from Starlight Sailing Adventrues was so much more than we had imagined. We envisioned that he would take us out sailing and explain a few of the more rudimentary aspect of what sailing was about and maybe - MAYBE - we would get to haul on a line or something like that. Oh no - Gord had bigger things in mind for us! After our safety briefing he started the engine and then described how to cast off, putting Donna at the helm. He taught her how to exit the dock and then got me to haul the main sail and within a few minutes we were sailing baby! Gord showed us how to adjust the genoa (that's the big triangular sail forward of the mast) and the mainsail (that's the one aft of the mast), how to sail upwind, how to heave to (although that was admittedly due to not listening to instructions on our part), how to tack, how to sail downwind 'wing on wing' as well as in a reach (yeah, I still don't really know what that means yet), how to navigate using the GPS charts, how to interpret the marker buoys that dotted the harbour, and how to dock. Yes. It was a LOT for an introductory lesson. And did I mention that we saw porpoises? Because we DID!! One comment: the air was SUPER thick with forest fire smoke so that's not fog you're seeing. Also, this was a very simple video so our apologies for the amateurish nature of it. I used our action camera in its waterproof housing so there's no audio for example. We had bigger things to focus on - like learning how to sail. Future videos will likely be more full featured -- like including our voices. And yes, there WILL be future videos! We will be taking our Basic Cruising Standard instruction (a 5 day, 4 night sail course) and then our intermediate celestial navigation course with Gord as well. We want to move on to get our intermediate and advanced cruising standards and ultimately - who knows? - our offshore cruising standard. With that under our belts, there's no limit to where we could sail! But we have to walk before we can run. This was a lot to take in for one day, but we are INCREDIBLY excited to continue this journey. If you want to find out more about Gord or S/V Starlight, or to maybe even get your own adventure started head on over to https://www.starlightsailing.com/ for all the details.