I'm Joseph the Sailing Man!!!

Well, I have been thinking about all this Fuel concerns and peak oil and what not and it occured to me that transportation in the future is going to be an issue.

What can make way without fuel? We are considering all these other types of alternative energy, but what space age vehicle exists that can transport us around the world with a renewable energy source?

Oh yeah. Sailboats.

Sailing and I have a good karma.

My first sailing was back in 1980 with my best friend, Jeff, on Candlewood Lake. He is still a dear friend and I speak to him all the time. (But not enough even then)

My next sailing was on a catamaran in the Gulf Of Mexico with this Engineer I met while working on Oil rigs. We hooked up with a pair of strippers and spent Easter sailing and then indulging in very non-religious activities.

Then, the family took a trip to Hawaii and booked a trip on sailboat. Well the captain recognized a Wellfleet Beachcomber T-shirt on one of us. Turns out his girlfriend owned a gym in Wellfleet or something, anyhow 6-degrees of seperation later, he has the Jethro Tull rocking on the stereo, a cooler of beer open and our half-day quickie turned into a all dayer to all the cool snorkle spots.

So sailing has had a real positive vibe for me. Factor in my Grandfather and namesake was a seaman and you have something there.

But I am not one to just make an assumption like this. Just buy a boat and take off? I need some training. So I find this company, Bluewater Sailing and check out their website. Looks good. I sign up for a Basic Keelboat Class. ASA 101, more or less.

Well the positive Karma just flows out of this. It is supposed to be four people and the instructor in the boat. The couple cancels so it is just me and the other guy. The other guy turns out to be Aaron Sorkin. The writer/creator of West Wing, Charlie Wilson's War and A Few Good Men. Now I saw a Few Good Men on Broadway, and the instructor and I are both former Marines. (A Few Good Men is about the Marine Corps base in Gitmo way before the hole POW camp thing there).

Cameron is a great guy and so is Aaron and we really just hit it off and have a grand old time.

Today is the final day and test for our certification. I get a 97% and Aaron gets a 96% (Bwahahaha Aaron ^__^ ) Actually I get like a 97.82% but that is another funny story.

Bluewater offers a package deal to get Basic Keelboat, Basic Coastal Cruising, Navigation and Bareboat Cruising for a discount if you pay the whole thing in advance and they give us an option to convert our current class and tuition into the package deal.

It is a lot of money and I look at the bank account and decide to do it. I plan to buy a boat and sail it solo around the world some day. I better know what the hell I am doing. So I write the check and go out and sit down for the review and test.

A few moment later the fellow in the office hands me the reciept for the package deal. $1600+ He also hands me my check back!!!!

WTF!

Aaron has paid for my classes. No shit. I have never had anyone do something like that for me. I am really sort of flabbergasted and deciding if I should refuse this largesse. I don't like owing anything to anyone and it just seemed weird to me.

He looks at me and says, "It is a gift from my family to you to thank you for our service to your country." Wow. So I shut up and get on with the class.

At a later point I was stumbling over some way to thank him again and he just shook it and said, "Anyone can tell what kind of man you are."

So if anyone says any crap about Aaron Sorkin, I'm going to have to kick their ass.

Oh, and we both passed our check out as well.

What an awesome week!