Skippers Training.

So I got asked 3 days before the start date, if I wanted to go on a week long Skippers Sailing training excursion. Obviously I said yes.
Kyle Schuurman, Sam Norman, Ben Louter, and myself hopped in a Homewood van and headed down to Nanaimo. Ben Hendricks, our sailing instructor/salty seadog extraordinare was there to meet us.

The first night we slept on the boat in the Nanaimo marina. The next morning it all began.
So we cast off our lines and headed out to the open seas on a 34 foot, 1998 Hunter Sailboat. All of us with the aspiration to one day become a salty seadog aswell, we listened to Captain Hendricks every word.

Day 1
Nanaimo Harbour - Dodd Narrows - Pirate Cove (docking practice) - Telegraph harbour(Thetus Island)
This day was a get to know your boat day. We all took turns sailing, docking, motoring, checking the engines, reading Current/Tide tables, understanding charts, and covering are heads from the snow.
Stopped in at a Pub and had chili and stew and a nice cup a joe.

Day 2
Telegraph Harbour - Houston Chanel - Ganges Harbour (Saltspring)
This day was more charting and tide tables. Rules of the Ocean are hard to remember, traffic signs aswell.
Got to Ganges marina. Went to Moby's pub and had a well needed greasey burger and fries and watched the Canucks game!

Day 3
Ganges(Saltspring) - Montague - Conover cove.
This was a full day. Started out with hours of COB(Crew OverBoard) procedures. This is where we are just practicing our sailing... and then our instructor will throw a COB practice flag overboard when no one is looking and wont tell us. This is stressful, but we all carried out the procedures well and in timely fashion.
After COB drills.... we went to Montague Bay and practiced our anchoring and mooring.
Made our way up to Conover Cove where we stayed for the night. This was the only non marina we stayed at. This meant we had to cook our own supper. Definitely the funnest night of the trip. The Racoons. :D
Having supper... look out the companionway and there is a friend looking down into the cabin wanting some yummy tortelini alfredo . We chased it out and off the dock. Soon this little critter was joined by two more trying to get into our boat. Kicking time. We set up a trail of noodles... and hid. I was ready... stretched my legs out.could barely contain my laughter. Racoon comes into view... I lunge. the racoon saw me. I was a little too late. I wanted a mid body hit so it would go into the ocean... but I ended up getting a full on bum punt. Needless to say the Racoon did a few spins and hit the edge of the dock. They didn't come back onto our boat. :D

Day 4
Conover Cove - Trincomale Chanel - Silva Bay(Gabriola)
Test day. Did some sailing. did a 2 hour test down below the below. yuck.
Needless to say we all passed our test all of us above 80%. A side note... our instructor Ben is also a PCOC instructor so i did that test aswell and am offically aloud to drive Motor Boats. Even though we passed our skippers test... Ben didn't think that Sam, Ben, and I were experienced or confident enough to take noob sailors out. So he gave us our Competant Crew member ticket. which just means we are AWESOME 1st mates. :D I am not upset. I had so much fun and learned lots. I will take it again for sure in a year or so.

Day 5
Silva bay - Nanaimo
This was our best day for wind and the best sailing by far. 15-25 knots of wind and 5 foot swells. We got our boat speed up to 8.8 knots. Which is the fastest I have been on a sailboat. Our boats at homewood are only really capable of 5-7.5 soo that was exciting!

Got to Nanaimo a little disappointed but in good spirits.



Got home on Friday night... and began working an hour after getting back. Left for Comox saturday evening. Went to Sam's nana's house for sam's mothers birthday. Huge dinner, white wine, mmmm. Got on a plane the next morning at 7. Met irwin in Calgary. flew to Edmonton... waited... flew to Grand Prairie. Drove to Sexsmith in the worst driving conditions I have ever been in. Here we are at PRBI Camp days trying to recruit students older than me to come to camp. hahah oh joys.
Last night all the camp reps had to get up in front of the whole school and tell them about our camps and why they are so unique. Well... I volunteered myself to do this... just about threw up hahah... so proud of myself. I think I got the right points across. --->
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This is going to be a fun 2 weeks. See my new schedule --------- up, over there. I will try and keep it updated as best as I can.


Love you guys!!!


-Josh