9-1-13

Well I am learning that Americans are all kinds of backwards…LOL…hence the date. We had our orientation and met the owner of the school. He gave us our rules for the time we are here. A lot of the normal no drugs, no drinking on the actual boat, no fighting with mates and no discussions of politics, religion or racism. We began class on Monday January 7^th and we had on average 30 knots of wind which is way too windy for a first day of sailing with people who have NO clue what they are doing...haha..We practiced raising and lowering the main sail and we learned all of our terminology for the parts of the boat. That was a blast! Actually. We have two different boats to learn on and we are on the “oldest” one. Yes we will just say it’s the oldest. We will learn the most on this boat since the engine has to be started manually every time and there are a couple of things that need to be fixed on it. Once we finished we just went up to the restaurant and got something to eat. Well everyone else did anyway. I was down with a little bit of land sickness. I had to go back to the boat to feel better. I am still getting used to going back and forth. I am so much more comfortable on the boat. Ty has absolutely no problem what so ever with that. We also learned some basic knots. We learned 5 of them and honestly I did have to help Ty a bit J just kidding we both got all the knots down and we know when and how to apply them so far.

Tuesday was much better for me since I was able to get much better sleep last night. Not as sick but it happens mostly when I am indoors. So I just stay outside! It’s not hard because everything is outside and open here. The weather is amazing. Tuesday we went out on the water for the first time. The winds were perfect and blowing about 15 to 20 knots all day so we had some major heeling and getting used to the boat and the way it sails and heels over. We take turns on the helm and tightening and loosening lines and we tacked and jibed a lot which means we basically would get the sails perfect and then turn around so we can switch side and get both sails on the other side of the boat…lol…it is a lot of work but it is fun and it beats any day in the office for sure!!!

We pulled up in Saldanha and we jumped from the boat to the dock and tied up the boat quickly so not to hit anyone else pretty much. First time jumping from the boat to the dock was pretty exhilarating for me!! Lol I was shaking! Anyway we bought groceries for a few days earlier this day and we had a bbq but they call it a Braai here. They have a wall made of brick with about 6 cubby holes in it and you put in your wood and start burning. For a proper braai you keep adding wood and burn it for about 8 hours! Everyone hangs out, drinks beer and sits around and talks. It was a lot of fun and interesting to see how they do it here. The boys had steaks and they made some kind of white mushroom sauce that looked freakin awesome with mashed potatoes. We had some kind of sausage in bun type thing and caramelized onions and it was all pretty interesting. Not my favorite but we have our kebobs and chops going on the grill today and steaks tomorrow.

Today we got up early and had a theory class! We learned how to read a chart and tell longitude and latitude. We learned what all the numbers mean and what the different signs on it. We did a little math and leaned how to read the compass and how to navigate so we will be practicing more of that today. We left and sailed over to Langebaan which took about an hour and a half because we had NO wind today. It was supposed to be the same as yesterday but we only had like 4-5 knots. We are now docked in Langebaan and making dinner. We will sail back at night and use our sweet new nav skills to get back to Saldanha and hang out there again tonight.