My Week with Womanship, A "For Women Only" Sailing
Course
I have a boat and I have Galveston Bay--why would I want to go off and take a sailing
course on someone else's boat? Because something always happens and we never make it
offshore, the term "spousal instruction" is an oxymoron, I wanted to sail
someplace I had never been, I wanted to practice anchoring, learn how to perform Bahamian
and Med mooring, I had never been out in our dinghy, all the above.
So, I signed up for a 7-day offshore Womanship course in Florida. Womanship is the
oldest "for women only" sailing program and I liked their motto, "No
Yelling". Not that Mike yells at me much these days. But he has been known to ask,
"Where the **** are you GOING?" when I am at the helm. When I have explained
quietly that unless he has either a legitimate instruction or a construction criticism he
keep such questions to himself, he has suggested that maybe I spend time practicing,
preferably on someone else's boat. So I looked for a warm place with similar
waters/anchoring conditions to our here in Galveston Bay. I decided Fort Myers was a good
place to start. That is one of Womanship's Florida bases. They also do courses out of Key
West to Miami, but I preferred the idea of the Gulf side of Florida.
I got almost everything I wanted out of it--just lousy weather kept us from sailing
about 50% of the time. We had 6 students (ages 43-60) and 2 instructors. The captain,
Lynne Fraker, was a jewel--really knew her stuff and how to impart it well. When she is
not instructing Womanship courses, she is either working as assistant Harbormaster at
Martha's Vineyard or is out single-handing her 36-foot Alden, a wooden boat classic. The
mate, Linda Martin, was getting in some extra practice before taking her 26-foot sloop to
the Bahamas, single-handed. Most of the students had some experience and owned boats or
had chartered several times. Like me, they just wanted to bone up on navigation skills,
anchoring, docking (someone else's boat!), and engine maintenance. We sailed a 43 Hunter
(with 2 heads, thankfully!). Left Ft. Myers Beach, Florida, and headed north, anchoring
nights at Glover Bight, Pelican Bay, Punto Blanco, Boca Grande (in the bayou at Gasparilla
Island), and off of Sanibel Island. We docked at a slip one night at Cabbage Key (where
Jimmy Buffett was reputed to have been inspired to write the song "Cheeseburger in
Paradise"). Temperature ranged from 82 to 50, winds from zip to 25 knots+, weather
from hot blazing sun to squalls and thunderstorms. Fortunately, we were in Charlotte
Harbor the day we got the biggest winds (Force 6, which seemed to be plenty for most on
board!). We each got to spend a useful amount of time practicing reefing and sail trim.
Because I was the only one who had written "would like some heavy weather
experience" on the expectation sheet, I was elected to go out on deck wearing the
harness and pull down the mainsail in the nastiest weather. I only got whacked in the face
once by a knot on the end of a loose jib sheet, but suffered no facial rearrangement
(thank heaven I was wearing my glasses!) and managed to get everything tied down and
covered.
Another useful skill we all acquired was dealing with speed demons in power boats and
motoryachts in the Intercoastal Waterway (there were a FEW nice people in power boats, but
they were greatly outnumbered by those who left us rocking and rolling in their wakes). We
also learned to pay careful and close attention to charts and "local knowledge"
provided by the captain to avoid shoals outside of and IN the channels. Thanks to the
diligence of whoever was the navigator of the day, we managed to avoid going aground,
although we had been told to expect it more than once. Almost every day we passed 2-5
boats aground, some much smaller and with less draft than "New One".
In crowded anchorages, such as Boca Grande, it was interesting to note how many men
would pop up out of their boats and yell instructions (not advice) on how to proceed when
they saw a cluster of women on deck. The captain would kindly thank them and then ignore
them. We students thought we should put up a "Student Boater" sign to really
scare the hell out of 'em, but the captain wouldn't let us. It was nerve-wracking to
practice docking stern first between narrow pilings with a strong current and an audience,
but we all did beautifully and I learned some very useful hints on using spring lines. I
was ready to head home and practice singlehanding my 36-footer! We ended with a cross-Gulf
motor sail (the NOAA report said 10-15 knots--the real weather said 1-2 knots). We
practiced taking running fixes, using the GPS, using visuals, and doing MOB drills under
motor with a lifesling.
All that plus occasionally being the only boat in an anchorage with pelicans, seagulls,
loons, bald eagles, and dolphins all around (didn't see any manatees), made this offshore
course worth the time and $$. I not only learned a lot of new skills, I reinforced those I
already knew and increased my self confidence. Which is a good thing, because Mike and I
have decided to take a "minicruise" of 5 weeks to see if we really do want to
cruise forever in the future. We want to try it out before we "sell up and sail"
and discover 2 weeks later we hate the water, the boat, and each other!