Family Travel Other
SAILING:
Getting a Clew in Santa Barbara
Base camping at Santa Barbara was luxury living. On the first day, when we asked whether we needed to be up at 3:30AM for a weather check, the sailing instructors just looked at us and laughed. Since we needed wind to sail and the wind wouldn't kick in until mid-morning, classes wouldn't begin until (gasp!) 8:30AM. Base camp also meant LUNCH. During the previous three sections, lunch had meant a handful of trail food eaten during a quick break from hiking, climbing, or paddling. At Santa Barbara, however, not only did we get to eat a HOT lunch -- but most of the time it was made for us by the jefes de cosina. Another pleasant change was the break from packing, loading, and unloading boats every day. For ten days all we had to do was roll up our sleeping bags and bivy sacks and we were ready to go.
We started out by learning how to rig each of the boats. We had 1 drascom, 2 Laser Is, 3 Laser IIs, and Sunny the Sunfish. By mid-morning, we were out on the water with the instructors learning how to work the jib and what it felt like to capsize -- again and again and again. Digger gave us a memorable class on capsizing procedures with Rocky and Shelly as visual aids and we quickly became very experienced at righting the Lasers before they turtled.
Soon it was Thanksgiving. Alisha and Chris came by panga to drop off some special goodies from Ingrid. We had a fantastic Thanksgiving feast. Trip did a great job of cooking the fresh fish and potatoes and the pumpkin pies that Clay baked were superb.
For this special occasion, we even had a camp fire and spent some time sitting around it, enjoying the evening. We each reflected on the many things we were thankful for -- friends, family, good health, the beauty around us.
True to the course description, when the wind was up, we were on the water -- learning to tack, gybe, and use the trapeze. When there wasn't any wind, we learned about rights of way, points of sail, repairing the boats, new knots, sailing history, sailing theory, and how to work the radio. Gabriel taught us how to say the parts of the boat in Spanish and gave us a class on sharks.
When we weren't busy sailing or taking classes, we were having fun in other ways. We learned new games like power ball, the fantasy game, and Digger's version of Mafia. And we celebrated Katherine, Marthe, and Paco's birthdays with haikus for each of them. After the evening meetings, Paco kept us on the edge of our seats with readings from the Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor. And nightly raids from neighboring racoons and coyotes also kept things interesting.
During the last few days at Santa Barbara, we had our first regatta, took our first quiz (every one passed), did mid-course evaluations, and dove on the nearby wreck.
Then it was time to pack up camp and prepare for the coastal section. We loaded the boats and watched as they were towed home behind the panga. Then we hikedback over the mountains to the Branch. There, we said goodbye to Kevin and Hunter and hello to Rick and DeVere who would be joining us for coastal sailing.
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