Sailing!

At PUCV, there is a weekly schedule of different sports and activities you can participate in with Chilean students: weight lifting, Arabic dance, yoga, volleyball, etc. One of the guys in my program was interested in learning to sail, so he organized a 7-class sailing course through a yacht club in Concon. I was tired of merely enjoying the ocean from the shore, so I decided to go out on a limb and try it. Besides me, six other students in my program are participating and none of us have any sailing experience. Last Monday was our first class. There was literally 10 minutes of introduction before we were in the boats. Valeria, the lady that is teaching us, explained some sailing terminology, told us that it was likely we would get wet, and shoved us on board. We realized very quickly that she means business. One of the guys got yelled at within the first hour after not tacking properly. Lisa, my sailing partner, and I were terrified of screwing up just because we’d have to face Valeria. The language discrepancy also complicates things. She mostly uses Spanish and we aren’t familiar with sailing terminology, so the first time nobody really knew what was going on.

Not to worry, though… Valeria emailed us a 33-page sailing manual that we were supposed to review for our second class. 33 pages. In Spanish. Yea right. We had our second lesson last Wednesday. I was relieved to find out that Valeria’s husband, who is not an intimidating drill sergeant, was teaching us that day. The waves were bigger and there was a lot more wind, which made it even more fun. The only downfall to sailing right now is that it’s winter here and the water temperature is chilly to say the least. We had another class last Friday but I skipped out because I’ve been battling a cold the past week and didn’t think being barefoot in freezing water would help. I missed out on a good time. The waves were especially violent and two of my sailing mates capsized their boat and fell in the ocean.

The Yacht Club in Concon where we go sailing.

Even with the tense instructor, I have fallen in love with sailing. It’s so much more fun than other water recreation because it actually requires some skill and you have all of the control. It’s great when you finally catch the wind and take off. The pelicans that randomly swoop down next to you are entertaining, too. We had a lesson yesterday and I noticed this huge splash directly in front of my boat. My first thought was shark. Before I started freaking out, Valeria yelled out, “¡Las focas!” Seals! There were two seals swimming around us and following the water movement from our boats’ rudders. It was really neat.

The sailing crew.

I can’t wait to go sailing when I get back to Wisconsin. I won’t be able to enjoy sailing with seals, but the water will actually be warm enough that capsizing won’t be such a distressing prospect. The only problem is that now I don’t know any of the terminology in English.