Category — Sailing

I’ve finally started doing something that really makes me feel like I’m no longer living in London. I’ve started learning to Sail! It’s something I’ve always wanted to do, and to my delight I found that there’s a sailing school round the corner from me in Rushcutters Bay. The Pacific Sailing School has been around for 30 years, and I also discovered that a couple of my friend’s have learnt there and spoke highly of it.

The first sailing lesson was a good test of my sea legs - I occasionally struggle. After a tour of the boat by our instructor, Brian, and running through a couple of drills like tacking - changing direction when sailing into the Wind - we set sail. I have to confess to being slightly nervous at first. Sydney Harbour is a busy place to be, being novices, and not knowing all the rules of the road, felt like it might be intimidating.

Within no time, we were sailing into the wind - clever trick that one. Tacking away, starting to work well. We were sailing on the International J/24 class boat. It’s a small easy to handle boat, that’s used for racing. But it’s characteristics make it a great training boat.

Unfortunately, just as we were getting into our flow, a storm appeared on the horizon. Being out on the open water, and seeing it rolling in was really intimidating. But it was also an amazing sight. It was really quite beautiful in that weird ‘oh my god’ kind of way. It was like seeing a wall of doom rolling in.

So, we returned to port, had the boat secured and were safely in the sailing club before the front hit. I never realised quite how social sailing is! Really. Everyone goes out after for a few beers and food. It’s really good! And Terry, the sailing school owner is always so happy to see his students in the bar, that he’s buys a few jugs to get everyone started.

I’m loving what I’ve done so far. I think I’ll be hooked on this one!

Bookmark and Share

Close this Window Bookmark and Share This Page

Save to Browser Favorites / Bookmarks

Ask backflip blinklist BlogBookmark Bloglines BlogMarks Blogsvine BuddyMarks BUMPzee! CiteULike co.mments Connotea

del.icio.us Digg diigo DotNetKicks DropJack dzone Facebook Fark Faves Feed Me Links Friendsite folkd.com

Furl Google Hugg Jeqq Kaboodle kirtsy linkaGoGo LinksMarker Ma.gnolia Mister Wong Mixx MySpace

MyWeb Netvouz Newsvine oneview OnlyWire PlugIM Propeller Reddit Rojo Segnalo Shoutwire Simpy

Slashdot Sphere Sphinn Spurl Squidoo StumbleUpon Technorati ThisNext Webride Windows Live Yahoo!

Email This to a Friend

Copy HTML: 

 If you like this then please subscribe to the RSS Feed.

Powered by Bookmarkify™

More »

Powered by Bookmarkify™