Just Jibing

One of the few things I bothered to pay extra for while we were in Antigua was a sailing lesson. Betsey was feeling tired, so she napped in the room while I went and risked my life. I went to meet my instructor, whose name was Owen.

Owen was a local guy with a nice disposition, and I swear you looked at him and you could hear a little Bob Marley playing, but that could have been the radio. I introduced myself and I could tell right away that he was way cooler than me and way more fit, so I was glad Betsey was safely back in the room and not tempting him with her good looks. I didn't want any incentive for him to get me in an "accident". I don't think he was a bad guy at all, but I mean, who would blame him.

Owen and I went down to the beach and pulled a Hobie Cat HobieWave boat into the water. He took a short amount of time teaching me the basics of sailing, the ideas behind tacking and jibing, and then Owen tightened the sail and we were off. He told me that I should never jibe out on the open ocean as I would flip the boat. If I got better, then it would be okay. I knew I wasn't cool enough.

It was great fun out on the ocean. The boats travel surprisingly fast. A big pelican flew along side of us and then passed us as if to brag, but there again they fly faster than you would expect. Owen took us out a little bit and had me execute a tack and go back towards the beach. Once in the cove, I would jibe. He took me through this three or four times and then started to mention something about me giving him blood pressure. The next time in the cove he jumped off and said you're fine now. I had about 20 minutes of instruction at this point.

Uh, Okay. If someone had shown me how to drive a car for 20 minutes and then handed me the keys, I'm pretty sure I would have wrecked right off the bat. There's a lot to internalize, and that's with growing up around cars. Here I was given a completely foreign mode of locamotion and told I could handle it after 20 minutes. I wasn't feeling too confident.

Well, not wanting to look like too much of a wimp, I took it out to sea, turned around, came back, and maybe did that a couple more times before calling it quits. When I pulled up to the beach, Owen looked at me oddly. He seemed surprised I was done already.

"You were doing alright."

I told him I might do more tomorrow. I paid for my lesson and gave him a decent tip. I told him it was for his blood pressure medication. He laughed and taught me an island sign that meant from the heart. I knew I was cooler now.

Apparently, Betsey had tried to get my attention from the balcony while I sailed. I was a little preoccupied to notice. I was excited when I came in and she said she'd seen me. I asked if she'd taken pictures and she got quiet. Apparently I looked so good, she had spent all her time trying to get my attention and never thought to take one. That's pretty much what I was going for, so I didn't mind too much.

So that's my sailing adventure. If you took a look at the Google map of our vacation, you can get a good idea of where I was sailing and Betsey's vantage of the entire area from the balcony of our room.