In this episode of Sailing A B Sea we pass our RYA Competent Crew Course with flying colours and then go back to the classroom for 4 days of RYA Day Skipper ...

Closed Captions (CC):
Last night had to be one of the coldest

nights ever. Neither Aannsha or I could

get much sleep it was so cold. We were under a doona and sharing body heat

but it's didn't, that didn't seem to help.

I actually slept in my beanie and my

hoodie last night! So we yesterday we passed our first aid course and got our

certificates and the day before that we

passed our VHF radio handling course.

Our licenses will get to us within the

next six weeks or so and today is Monday,

which means we begin the first day of

our competent crew course. Really

looking forward to it. Literally learning

the ropes. But now it's just before 8

o'clock in the morning, I've been to the loo

and just about to get back on board and

get some breakfast before we get whipped into shape at 9 o'clock.

This is Dan, he's also doing competent crew. Hello.

And there's our skipper, Mareike,

she's gonna whip us into shape.

Barry, Dan and I spent the morning being

taught all about the yacht and how

things work and by the afternoon we were

out sailing in Gibraltar Bay. We're geared

up and prepped ready for our first sail.

How's it feeling guys? Good to go?

(thumbs up all round) Alright let's do it.

So now it's 8.20 in the morning

and before we get sailing we've got to

prep the boat and one of those things is

to take all the rubbish out, so I'm

just heading up the pier to throw this

rubbish away. It doesn't look it from

what you're seeing on the camera, but

it's freezing and there's quite a gusty

wind blowing and that wind really

bites into you. So sailing is not all

sunshine and cocktails, in the wintertime,

where we are at the moment, it's pretty

damn cold. I think most of this wind, I

don't even know where north and south is

at the moment, but I think most of this

wind is coming off something that's

coming down the Atlantic from the north

and bringing a lot of cold with it.

So today we're going to prep the boat,

relearn our rope and knot-tying skills

because we weren't very good yesterday,

and then we're going to head out to

either a place, a Spanish port in Morocco

or further up the coast of Spain to a

different marina up north. Personally I

hope we're headed south, for obvious reasons.

Barry's wishful thinking didn't pan out the way he hoped and based

on the wind direction our skipper Mareika decided we would head north

to La Duquesa, one of the Costa del Sol's best marinas on the southern

Spanish coast. It was a great day for sailing and everyone got the

chance to take turns at the helm. We

were even joined by a pod of common

dolphins for part of our journey.

We arrived into La Duquesa just on sunset, put the boat to bed and went out

for a cold beer or two. La Duquesa is a very pretty marina and

it's easy to see why it's considered one

of Spain's best.

Wednesday morning, we're in Spain in

La Duquesa and we're just about to prep

the boat ready for a fairly long sail,

we're going across to the northern part

of Africa to another Spanish colony

called sector, sweater, sweeter something

like that. Little bit chilly this morning

but we've all been and had our showers

because apparently the facilities on

the other side of the water are not as

good as these. So we did some last-minute cleaning of ourselves,

we've got to prep the boat now and get

out. There's probably going to be quite

light winds today and maybe a little bit

of rain and certainly it's cold, my fingers

are freezing so if there's a little bit

of camera shake that's why. The next day

as we left La Duquesa behind us the wind

and weather forecasts proved correct. No

wind, cold temperatures and rain thrown

in for good measure. But we did have

mugs of hot tea!

What you doing today Baz? Well today we're motor sailing. Oh why is that?

Because there's no wind and this is probably the longest passage we're gonna go on.

There's just got no wind at all. But we

had wind yesterday. Yes we did have wind

yesterday. Yesterday was fabulou,s today

we're praying for wind. We did our week

of competent crew and we got our

certificates. We are competent now!

At least someone thinks we're competent.

Right now we've got four days back on

land in the classroom where we do our

theory for day skipper. As you can

probably tell we're looking pretty

freakin knackered.

It's very, it's been hard. It's challenging yeah. Yeah it is but it's

been worth it and you know it was

actually really good in a lot of ways,

it's just challenging on all levels. You

know that's, I think that's when you're

on, that's when you feel alive and that's

when you get a really good sense of

achievement when you actually get to the

other end. So true yeah. Yeah so we've

just bought ourselves some fizzy water

for the next (and a coffee) how many hours

in the classroom. Four days now in the

classroom and then five days back on the

boat doing competent crew... No Day

Skipper.

and then we're actually halfway through what we've got to do.

Our crew mate Dan headed back to

England and we went into the classroom

to learn Day Skipper theory alongside our

new crew mates Ryan and Colum. Next

time on Sailing A B Sea we're out of the

classroom after four days of Day Skipper

theory and back on board Rockefeller for

our five days of Day Skipper practical.

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