This weekend, we had our 2-day Basic Keelboat Sailing 2 course.  It’s a continuation from the first weekend but our instructor was an older gentleman who was big on safety and was BO-RING.  He went by the book on classroom instruction and we spent a lot of time going through checklists and sailed very conservatively.

On Saturday, the weather was warm and the skies were blue without a cloud in the sky.  Although it was a great day to be on the water with a cold beer, it wasn’t a great day for sailing.  There’s no fun in sailing without wind.  We made it out to the bay but the wind died by the first half hour. By the afternoon, the ebb  was very strong (pretty much sucking us out of the bay) so we turned on the motor and headed in early.  The last hour was spent our docking maneuvers.

This morning, the weather looked more promising but we were tricked.  The no-wind conditions were similar to yesterday and we ended up floating on the water and practiced reefing the sail.  We decided to call it a day by 1:00 pm and revved up the motor.  Unfortunately the motor died half-way back and I thought we were going to have to call the AAA of sailing for a tow.  Fortunately for us, we got the motor running intermittently and sailed VERY SLOWLY back to the harbor.

So, we are rescheduled to go back and finish the class another day.  We still have to learn the Man Overboard maneuver and practice jibing and tacking few more times.  Once we’ve gotten all that down, there’s a written test to get our first certification.  It would have been nice to get it all done today but I guess it’s just extra time for me to study the ASA book.   Pray for wind next time!!