Take a sailing adventure
Learning to sail with the Port Angeles Community Boating Program and instructor Kay, in forefront.
Last year while my wife recovered from a stem cell transplant for leukemia, I would watch sailboats. She was extremely ill for many months and needed care, but every day I’d take a short walk from our cancer-care housing to Seattle’s Lake Union and sit at water’s edge. While big, hulking yachts and motorboats spewed pollution and clogged up the lake, sailboats would skim quietly by, sails billowing so beautifully and peacefully.
I must’ve told my wife a million times that I wanted to step on a sailboat, so many times that when we returned home to Port Angeles and learned that the Community Boating Program offered a women’s sailing class, she told me I had to do it, even though, truth be told, I was nervous: “What if I get seasick? What if I’m the oldest person? What if my knees won’t bend? What if I can’t figure it out?”
“You spent all last summer talking to me about sailing, you have to try it,” she said, obviously not wanting to endure another summer of me saying I want to go on a sailboat.
And what an adventure it was. I now know that sailboats have ropes for everything that constantly need to be tightened or loosened, depending on wind. And getting anywhere involves teamwork and a zig zag course that may have to be changed due to wind, weather and what not, such as a student (me) turning the boat the wrong way or putting a sail up when it’s supposed to be down. Ooops.
The Community Boating Program’s keel boat class turned out to be a great chance to learn in a supportive environment with wonderful, patient instructors who had their own lifetimes of adventure on the water.
One of my fellow students said one morning: “Sailing is a metaphor for life. It’s never a straight line. Things come up all the time.” Others shared what learning to sail meant to them. For some, being an equal sailor with their husband (who usually took over the boat and did everything), or seeing if sailing was possible due to health issues, or like me, just wanting to try it out and live a dream. So glad I did!
Take action
Sail, don’t motor
Sailing is a clean-air adventure! Non-profit community boating programs, such as in Port Angeles, gets locals on the water. Fees help support community access to boating. In Seattle, the Center for Wooden Boats offers sailing and rowing for all.
Avoid cruise ships
A mid-sized cruise ship can use as much as 150 tonnes of fuel each day, which emits as much particulate as one million cars. Friends of the Earth have created a handy Cruise Report Card, showing which fleets have better environmental practices. Cruise? Just don’t do it.
Green boating
If you do find yourself on a motorboat adventure, check out Sailors for the Sea green boating ideas and take action to protect the ocean. The Ocean Foundation’s Seagrass Grow offers the world’s first and only blue carbon calculator – planting and protecting coastal wetlands to fight climate change.