Passing A Sailing Milestone

Sailing north on Jamaica Bay.
The Skyline of Manhattan can be seen
on th horizon to left (port).

This past weekend my wife, dog and I passed a sailing milestone. While it might be inappropriate to use a terrestrial metaphor like "milestone" to talk about an aquatic event, I wonder what the alternative might be.  A Channel marker? Regardless, when we docked at the end of our most recent sail, we logged as many sails on Jamaica Bay on our own in a C&C 24 as we sailed on the Hudson River in class with an instructor on a J/24.  The occasion seems something worth marking. 

Our US Sailing  Basic Keelboat Course was a six-class course, each class lasting at least three hours. Most of our course, but not all of it, was under sail. Last Saturday we sailed for the sixth time on our own. Over our six sails, we have logged well over eighteen hours under sail. On one sail alone, we logged five hours under sail.

We made a few mistakes over our six sails, always learning from our errors. We are still learning but our learning curve is no longer as steep. With the growing confidence that comes with increased experience, what was once challenging is becoming routine and we are feeling more comfortable on the water under sail.

We have yet to anchor, or sail under the Marine Parkway Bridge and out into the more exposed water of Rockaway Inlet, but someday soon . . .