I can sail!

As opposed to flailing wildly in a boat, which is what I've been doing for the last few weeks.  I took up a sailing course at the beginning of the month. About three hours, twice a week on Sunday afternoons and Tuesday evenings.  Its being run by the ANU sailing club down at their boathouse on Lake Burley Griffin, a nice twenty minute cycle ride round the lake from the department (apart from the big road bridge and aggressive magpie). The course has been really good fun.  It was very windy the first couple of weeks, the first time we went out we were capsizing all the time.  This was followed by a really calm session which was just tough, but the last few have had really good winds, and when the sun has been shining has been really nice.

The capsizing has been actually quite good for us as a group, because we're no longer afraid of it, and rather good at dealing with it. Anyway, today's session was really fun, we've started having mini-races, and today I've finally feel as though I've got the hang of it.  I may not be very good, but I now know what I'm doing, as opposed to being fairly clueless the first few weeks. I'm still suprised at just how quickly you can sail upwind!

We've not been learning in little plastic toppers, but proper Lasers (and a Taser) which are fairly decent fibreglass craft, Lasers are even raced in the Olympics and are seen as very pure sailing as there's not much to the boat, its all reasonably simple. Anywho, I've been having fun, met a few people, and am now considering their intermediate course that'll start in a few weeks.