First Time Sailing

It was a very quick up and back to Illinois, luckily staying east of the bad weather in the Midwest, and returning home by noon on Monday. Stan and Dana are wonderful hosts, and entertained me with photo's and video's of paddling trips they've done on the Buffalo River, and on the Yukon River, where Stan joined Verlen Kruger and friends, celebrating Verlen's 80th birthday on a 2000 mile journey to the Bering Sea.

When I arrived home, we were having record high temps in the 70's, with winds 10-12 mph. Paul and I quickly drove to the Lake for my first sailing lesson with the SeaWind with Balogh Sail Rig.

Truth be told, it was not love at first sail. I was very nervous. It's going to take me a while to get used to it all, and learn to trust the amas. I have to admit to more than one minute of wondering why I'm not just paddling.

I'm still thinking this gives me the best of it all, sailing when the winds are up, and paddling when not. I've got 7 weeks to adjust so should have lots of time. I need to learn how to reef the sail while underway, take down the mast and remove amas while in the boat, and most importantly, find out where my comfort level is in conditions.

And there will be lots of experimenting in how best to set up and pack the boat for the Challenge. The SeaWind has a much larger cockpit compared to the Dreamcatcher and will require many changes to what I'm used too (i.e. where to put the compass, the GPS ... ).