My winter "armchair sailing" took a different turn recently. Vicky and I found out that there is a US Power Squadron... sorry, America's Boating Club... sorry, now wait, um Wilmington Sail and Power Squadron (yea, that's it... at least that's how I make out the checks) group near us. We found out about this outfit through a friend of her's who's a member and it turns out that many of them boat on the Chesapeake Bay and keep their boats in Rock Hall. We have attended a couple of their zoom meetings and it seems like a nice bunch.
The US Power Squadron has historically been known for their educational initiatives. I remember when I was talking to my friend Carl about his father sailing around the world, he was always sure to tell me how Harry had prepared for years through the Power Squadron training courses. That was part of the appeal for joining - we realized our ASA 101 and 103 training from 2013 and the ASA 105 Coastal Navigation course from early 2014 is getting long in the tooth so to speak. Knowledge should be refreshed from time to time.
We signed up for their "Marine Navigation" (used to be Piloting) course and their "Engine Maintenance" class.
It tuns out I had the text for the navigation class, The Weekend Navigator, in my library already so I'm getting a jump start on the reading. I almost didn't sign up for this... the book makes it seem that it is all about modern navigation like GPSs and chart plotters, but when I spoke to the instructor it sounded like the course was based on paper charts. Paper charting was fun to learn - once. But in 8 years of sailing since that course I have never broken out the paper chart. We will see how it turns out.
The engine maintenance course is badly needed. My current skills are limited to checking the oil and coolant levels.
It looks like weeknights in April are about to get busy!
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