We promise we are still alive. Its been over a month since we last posted and man we’ve been busy. First and foremost we passed our US Sailing Association Basic Keel Boat Certification. We spent three weekends studying basic sailing on a J80 that was trying to kill us. Our first trip out was in 20 kt winds and while I knew the boat wasn’t going to flip over with that amount of lead underneath it I wasn’t sure anyone had told the boat that. It was definitely an interesting trip and I think we are going to continue with our sailing studies and gain more experience. There is something peaceful about moving along the water with no motor sounds even if it is only at about 7 knots. For the last weekend we actually ended up on 3 different boats in one day. We started off on a J32 which is a single stateroom cabin cruiser. We asked the school to work with us on this boat so we could get a feel for the type of sailing we were looking at doing. I think Lisa and I both found that we enjoyed the larger boat due to its fancier creature comforts like padded seats and a steering wheel. After that we went through our written test and discussed various procedures and received our certification. KB our instructor for the day mentioned that he had a catamaran that was coming in from the Caribbean. He invited us to come check it out and we couldn’t pass up the offer. The catamaran turned out to be a 2014 Fountaine Pajot 44 Helia named Libelle and was absolutely amazing. While on board we were unexpectedly given orders to cast off lines and found ourselves on board for the relocation to a mooring ball in Annapolis Harbor. After arriving at the mooring ball we then hopped a ride with Libelle’s owner on a J80 back to the dock where it was being hauled out and placed on a trailer. Overall a lot of excitement for 2 people who a month ago had logged only about 10 hours of sailing experience as passengers between the two of us.
Check out the pictures below and I’m working on some more posts so please keep an eye out for more updates.
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