Back to School

Finally found a school that was fitting my schedule in Sarasota. Cheers to the "Sara Bay Sailing School". I've been in Sarasota a week and had my first sailing lesson; my second and last is coming on Monday. I'm hooked. I'm spending too much on hotels, but the weekly rate is $300 where I'm at and should get me through the schooling. Then I'm out to find a boat. I may already have one in my sights.

The Heat

I've been sweating since I got into Florida. I made a mad dash down to St. Augustine FL after a last good by with the family in KY. I arrived early in the morning 3 days ago and had a series of good encounters that led me to the sailing school in town, and put me in touch with some other folks in the sail biz in town.

The sailing school will let me audit the courses I want, for half price, but that will be in mid February. There is also a large chance that I'll get bumped out by someone willing to pay full price. So, I started wandering south on the A1A route looking for marinas as I went. Haven't been very lucky finding free sailing lessons or even inexpensive ones. I finally broke down and did the "planning" thing by looking up phone numbers and addresses of schools on-line. I had been doing my searching by phone book and word of mouth, but gosh... I can only move so slow :)

I've met a few drunken sailors that had lots of advice... mainly that I should just buy a boat and go for it. Folks at the marinas and hotels are very helpful... People are great!

I'm done looking up schools, so I'm off again to call all these schools to see if I can audit something tomorrow instead of next month. I'm too impatient sometimes. I should work on being eager and patient.

Time to get moving

It has been a bit over 6 months since I quit my job to go putting around. I spent about 5 months on the Appalachian Trail and the rest recovering from surgery. How did I fill the recovery time?

• bought a car
• recovered from surgery
• settled an incorrect tax delinquency claim
• started a new bank account
• tracked down my bounce boxes from the trail
• read a ton of books
• saw pounds of movies
  
• hung out with family
• had beer in redneck bars
• installed a floor
• cleaned gutters
• dug ditches
• took lots of baths
• tried to figure out the $48,000 hospital bills
  

I'm feeling good again, have nearly everything squared away, and have a bad case of cabin fever. Tomorrow I'm headed off to Florida to learn how to sail and figure out what I'm doing next.

The basic idea to to head south, and turn left at the Florida border to follow the coast line south. Live out of the car while trying to get as much time on sail boats as possible. Maybe take a class, maybe just make friends with boats by looking salty on the docks. I'm super excited to get out on the water in a sail boat.

Fingers crossed... I'll try to get some sleep tonight so I'm less likely to sleep during the drive.