Made it into beautiful Vancouver. That’s the good. The bad, gale force winds and our sail was cancelled. Here is a couple of shots. First the mountains as we landed. The second is a view of downtown from Granville Island.
Category: Sailing
Weekly Photo Challenge: Escape
This week the challenge presented us is “Weekly Photo Challenge: Escape”. In the description, one sentence hit me as so true in my thinking in the past while, “the desire to disappear and run away, the need to unplug and shut off”. To some this may mean solitude, or winding down. To me it means leaving nothing on the table as life rumbles on. See it all, experience as much as one can and do it in such a way that maximizes the experience and allows opportunity for that solitude, and the lowering of one’s stress. I think we have found our avenue to escape with a simple sailboat. I sincerely hope we can work this one out.
Related articles
- Weekly Photo Challenge: Escape (erinolearyphotography.com)
- Weekly Photo Challenge: Escape (aboutgivingandreceiving.wordpress.com)
- Weekly Photo Challenge: Escape (sonelcorner.wordpress.com)
- Weekly Photo Challenge: Escape (marsowords.wordpress.com)
- Weekly Photo Challenge: escape (simplylifestuff.com)
- WP Weekly Photo Challenge: Escape (tchistorygal.com)
- Weekly Photo Challenge: Escape (annablakeblog.com)
- Weekly Photo Challenge: Escape (scsurfbutler.com)
- Weekly Photo Challenge: Escape (shazza91321.wordpress.com)
- Weekly Photo Challenge: Escape (from the Rain) (chrisbreebaart.wordpress.com)
Antigua – To Sail Wins, So Far
We have asked ourselves several times the question, to sail or not to sail. At this point, we have advanced to the point that it is not a definite no, yet still not a definitive yes. We are satisfied that we can do it on a level of ability, now comes the thinking part. As in, what will it take to make this a bigger part of our future. Lots to discuss, lots to post, but at least we know we love doing it. Four hours of 10 foot seas and 22 knot winds showed us that we can handle it, and, indeed revel in it. A quick tease for you. Raw video off Antigua.
Related articles
- To Sail Or Not To Sail – Antigua (joebeans2002.com)
To Sail Or Not To Sail – Antigua
As one can see by the day ticker on the right side of the page, we are 3 days away (less than) from departing on another adventure. That’s right, we are giving the sailing dream it’s due and spending 5 days sailing on a Royal Yachting Association course in Antigua. Crew Competency to be exact. Both Lori and I have some experience, but 0 ocean and no certifications. We hope to knock a few things off the checklist. First, spending an evening in NYC on a layover, and with luck, meeting up with all of our favourite blogger, El Guapo. Hoping that works out. Second, starting on our road to certification and creation of our log books. Lastly, we will find out whether booting around on a 40 foot sailboat is something we want to do for a few years. One door opens they say.
The downside, I still haven’t finished blogging ANY of our trips, and this will just add to the pile. At any rate, blogging will be quite slow for the next couple of weeks, and I will truly miss all of you for that period and hope to eventually catch up, both reading and writing when I get back. Hope the weather in Calgary is truly miserable while we are away as well (Just Kidding, stop the hate mail)
.
To Sail Or Not To Sail – Ghost Lake, Alberta
We last left off awaiting Lori’s post on the Glenmore reservoir Sailing School adventure. As we awaited, I posted about our small road trip to Lake Newell. Well, I guess we are still awaiting, so I will move on to our next investigation, Ghost Lake, near Cochrane, Alberta.
The lake is a reservoir on the Bow River, withing spitting distance of the Rockies. We found it had spectacular views, a large community of boats, a sailing school and plenty of mooring availability. In other words, it ticked most of our boxes. What it is missing is the ability to go on week-long adventures, as in, no down lake areas to moor or anchor. Very beautiful, only that this is all there is. Scratch Ghost Lake.
Didn’t take to many decent pictures, but here is a video of crazy Canucks sailing Ghost Lake in November.
Related articles
- To Sail Or Not To Sail – Lake Newell (isitpossibletoseeitall.wordpress.com)
To Sail Or Not To Sail – Lake Newell
When we last left off, we were about to take our first lessons at the Glenmore Reservoir here in Calgary. Lori asked to write this and now, months and months later, I have given up and am moving on out of sequence. After our Glenmore adventure, we determined that we may need a spot to practise with a cheap 20 footer, or something of that ilk. Basically, we are full of ideas, but no plan, kind of winging it as we go. We had asked around and we were told of another reservoir near Brooks, Alberta that offered space and consistent winds. Many people had boats here, and it was reasonably close to Calgary. So, off we went to investigate.
We quickly determined it was a lake of some substance, just not the prettiest lake. This is quite common on the prairies.
We also determined that some pretty good size boats were out here.
Unfortunately, we also determined that the lake was not what we were looking for. It definitely had few surprises for wind as it was a good-sized body of water with few impediments on shore to disrupt the wind. This was also a negative as were looking for a place that could give us with enough variety and nooks and crannies to keep us occupied on overnight trips. This was not a feature of Newell Lake. Can’t win them all. We will continue the search in our next instalment.
To Sail Or Not To Sail – Now What
As I noted in the earlier post, To Sail Or Not To Sail – What we Did On Our Summer Vacation, we have made the decision to explore the feasibility of retiring on a sailboat. Having made that choice, we hit the first hurdle, which is simply put as “Now What”.
Our first step was to visit a sailing shop of some sort. These are fairly rare when you live in an area without access to your typical sailing venues. We are kind of landlocked with no big lakes close by, which is not really a good thing. We did find a shop (Glenmore Sailboats) in Calgary and popped in for a visit. Very friendly place and very willing to discuss sailing and live-aboard. As first moves go, this turned out pretty well. We asked questions, he answered. We asked where people sailed in the area and he listed off 4 places. These are Chestermere Lake, Glenmore Reservoir, Ghost Lake and Newell Lake, Alberta. We now had some places to check out. We asked about lessons and he recommended the sailing school at Glenmore Reservoir. We asked about live-aboard and if people actually do what we were thinking. The answer was a resounding yes. He knew of many people who do it. Some succeed, some don’t, which makes complete sense. Preparation is key.
We left feeling pretty good about things, other than the answers creating even more questions. I’ll leave that to later and concentrate on our next moves. Lori arranged lessons on the reservoir through the Calgary Sailing School. These were to start on June 1 and were on Lasers. I’ll leave that experience for the next post.
At this point, we now know that we are going to seriously look at this, that it is doable as people do it all the time. We immediately went into lala land and started casing out costs and boats. I was shocked. Check this one out.
–
Pretty impressive living space. The pricing is amazing to. Sailboats in this class can go for anywhere from $75-125,000. The other part we looked at was living costs including maintenance. This is where it gets hairy. We have read that you can do this for anywhere between 500 and 5,000 a month. Both ends I see as extreme and the most common number I see is 3,000. The idea suddenly becomes a bit less crazy.
I’ll leave off here and take you to our adventures on Glenmore Reservoir on my next post.
Related articles
- To Sail Or Not To Sail – What We Did On Our Summer Vacation (joebeans2002.wordpress.com)
To Sail Or Not To Sail – What We Did On Our Summer Vacation
Imagine this
–
We have been imagining this a lot. One night Lori and I were discussing the inevitable. You know, the day when cash flow changes and you are retired. We are at the point of serious consideration now and we are exploring possibilities that both give us what we want and do it within financial reason. Lori brought up sailing. Not just any sailing, but live-aboard sailing. The kind where you are truly free of encumbrance, the kind where you go where you want, when you want and bring your home with you. What brought this on was a progression. We originally thought RV. The killer there is fuel and the ability to get around once you got where you were going. Big bucks. Then we thought, wind is free. You move a lot slower, but we would be retired, so who cares.  An interesting concept and one which we have used as a template for our summer travels this year. We have been to several spots and have a lot to do and learn before we make a decision on whether this can be done, or even doable from a skill set position. We have sailed in the past, but nothing close to this vision. Will we be able to sail a 40 footer, will we be able to pass the necessary courses to be able to skipper a boat, where do we practise, what do we buy. A million things to do and think about. Over the next few years, we need to have an answer to these and any new questions that may pop up. And I will be documenting every bit of it for us to remember, and by virtue of vicariousness of blogging, so will you the reader.
This first post is an introduction to my thinking on this topic and an opportunity for you to tell us we are crazy, or crazy like a fox. Personally, I see this as a major challenge, one that I truly want to succeed at. We love to travel, and we want to see everything.
Song Of The Day – David Gray – “Sail Away”
No trivia question today for this one.
David Gray’s tune “Sail Away” is a metaphor for a lot of things. While the song has more to do with relationships, it also conjures up some beautiful visions of idyllically cruising the seven seas, and does so based on the tune and the use of the title prominently throughout the song. All the above aside, it is a remarkable song that can sweep you away into your thoughts. One of my all time favorites.
–
Sail Away
Related articles
- David Gray Announces Tour Dates (fresh1027.radio.com)