Lessons

So far I've tried to write this blog with a healthy dose of transparency.  I figure that if I'm going to share all the joys of owning and sailing a boat in Vancouver I might as well share the headaches and gaffs that go along with it, lest I seem like I'm bragging.  David and I carry very little pretension on the subject of sailing.  We knew going in that we were neophytes so why not laugh at our mistakes and let our friends laugh with us.

With that said, mistakes aren't much good if you don't learn anything from them.  Ergo I've decided to start concluding my trip  posts with a few words on "lessons learned."  Hopefully this will be an encouragement to friends or those of you from my sailing forum who may occasionally shake your heads at some of our stories.  So let's start with a few lessons from my last couple of trips:

The Importance of Planning

Sailing reminds me a bit of scuba diving in the sense that once you learn there is a temptation to become complacent.  Yet there are many ways to screw up even the simplest dive, and the simplest sail.  Every sail, no matter how casual, should take into consideration tides, wind daylight and the schedule of the passengers.  In particular on the last point, sailers take comfort in knowing there may be several contingencies in an emergency but not all of these may be convenient for the passengers.  

There