Training Day

And I thought taking the CPA exam was hard.

We spent four days last week with our training captain, Chris Simpson. He gave us a crash course (excuse the pun) on docking the boat, navigating, line handling (it is not called a rope on a sailboat) night sailing, proper sail trim, man overboard drills, (I hope we don’t have to use that one), anchoring, grabbing a mooring ball, boat maneuvering and a refresher of our theory.

He was perfect for our level of experience and supplemented our on-line education very well. We were both pretty exhausted at the end of each day. Nothing like worrying about hitting the dock with a 10,000 pound boat to wear you out. I got to practice docking the boat sixteen times. It was pretty taxing mentally but very fun. We both learned an incredible amount.

We had one scary moment when we were leaving the dock and our starboard engine died. Chris did an incredible job of getting the boat back to the dock in one piece.

I think we are in a very good spot to start our adventure. We just received the sign off from the insurance company that we can take the boat out on our own. Watch out Carribean Islands!

Captain Christopher Simpson and Captain Joseph Adams.

Joe doesn’t look like he’s having fun, but he’s learning a lot!

Celebrating when Captain Chris signed off on our skills