sailing away

Today we had a group offsite with OCSC Sailing, a sailing school that operates out of the Berkeley Marina. It was tons of fun; we sailed pretty close to Richmond, the Golden Gate Bridge, and San Mateo, we learned to "tack" and "gybe", and we raced against our co-workers. Our boat came in second out of six boats, and we were only about 15 seconds behind the leader.

At first I was a little thrown by all the terminology, and freaked out by the boat leaning way over when we were getting a good wind, but by the end I was having a blast. I think it helped that the instructor chose me to helm the boat during the race. She told us some great stories too; about sailing from San Francisco to Europe (through the Panama Canal!) with her father over a period of four years, sailing to Hawaii, and sailing in various crazy weather situations. She also said that with global warming and all, even yachts were starting to be able to sail through the once-fictional Northwest Passage. So much for global warming being a myth.

Anyway, I much enjoyed the outing, and I think I'd definitely go sailing again, especially on a nice clear day like today.