Swiss Cheese = Safety At Sea!

This is a short entry about safety. I just finished watching a fantastic production about safety on a YouTube channel that I want to share with you sailors. Ryan and Sophie‘s videos were produced in conjunction with Andy Schell of 59 North– an offshore sailing instructor. I defer to their video to explain the swiss cheese mentioned above. Trust me, these are great videos and well worth watching. Even day-sailors will benefit from this discussion.

Here is video #1. Video #2 should be public soon. It is currently available on The Quarterdeck, a pretty cool sailors social media platform.

Premature Passage Planning

Quarantine got you down? Social distancing a drag? Family togetherness a bit too together? Why not mentally check out, and plan that 2022 voyage from the South Africa to Grenada with me? Well, that, or you can have another deep and meaningful chat about feelings, express your gratitude for quarantine togetherness through improvisational dance, or your love of life by learning the oboe.

Me, I’ll plan that passage (ocean crossing).

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Boat lessons

The boat saga continues.  I convinced Sam that the cost of diesel would end up limiting our desire to use a motorboat.  Plus, we could probably get a cool sailboat and a dinghy with a powerful motor to satisfy his need for speed.  The girls also started to indulge us and participate in the discussions about sailing.  Teresa and I even started to wonder if this would be a fun past time while retired. Then those girls of mine inserted their bit of practicality – none of us know how to sail.

Well, that brought us to a momentary stand still.

But wait- there’s more.  We had no plans the week between Christmas and New Years.  We usually take some form of road trip around that time.   That jump started my mental process.

So, I planned a trip to take sailing lessons in late December.   We took a family trip (nanny included) to Marina Del Ray and took the most basic sailing lessons available under the American Sailing Association’s curriculum.    We had a fantastic trip, a great instructor, and a ton of fun sailing.   
Sam, Teresa and I took the written exam and all passed.  Ella refused to take an exam on a holiday trip, opting instead to go for a pedicure with Emma, the nanny.
So, now three of us knew the basics of sailing (very very basic) and all four of us had a great time.  Sailing is sounding even better.  Once again, sailing pops up as a possible answer to “what will we do when we retire.”

Picked Our New Neighborhood And Visited a Boat Show

Moving to an entirely new part of the country is complicated. Not only do you need to find a house, but that house needs to be in a neighborhood, and that neighborhood will have schools, etc. So, moving to San Francisco involved a lot more thant just looking at boats as it did in my imagination..  Hmm.   We started looking for places to live in SF.  We  spent a few very long days walking around in town SF.  

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