Study, study, study...

As the date of my departure gets closer, I am actually getting a bit stressed.  I have pretty much got things taken care of at work so that won’t be a concern, but I had no idea of the amount of prep work required to take these classes!

I had to make some special purchases for this trip… sailing gloves, some light foul weather gear and a few other odds and ends but that wasn’t difficult.  It is the studying that is killing me.  There are three books (one for each certification) that need to be read and the material assimilated in order to get the most out of the classes and make sure I past the written exams.  How many names can there be for a piece of rope???  And then you have to learn the name of every piece of the boat, their functions, the various forms they may take and their alternative names.  Holy crap.

I knew this was going to be a physically and mentally challenging vacation, but I really didn’t expect to have to do this much study.  All in all, it’s about 400 pages of material.  Yes, there are lots of diagrams and pictures.  Even so, I am wondering now if I wouldn’t have been better off taking the first two courses locally, getting some experience and then taking a couple more courses once I had a handle on basic sailing skills.  Too late now, I’m committed.

I’m looking forward to getting through it all, not just to get it over with, but because I have a friend at work who is also very interested in sailing and we may join the local yacht club together.  From what I understand, the membership is not that expensive and they have boats you can take out to continue learning, have a good time and develop your skills.  If I am teaching him along the way, that will reinforce everything I have learned.

I’ve been watching the weather around St. Thomas and it looks like they are getting daily afternoon showers but the temps have been in the mid-80s during the day and high 70s at night… sounds perfect.  So, I stocked up on sunscreen, got everything packed up and I am ready for adventure!  I arranged for a car to pick me up at 4:00am (OMG) to catch my 6:00am flight.

I’m glad I gave myself 2 ½ days after the sailing is over to just kick around St. Thomas, do some snorkeling and maybe take a ferry to Tortola, Virgin Gorda or Jost van Dyke.  It’s been at least 25 years since my last visit to the Virgin Islands, so I am looking forward to having some down time to do some exploring.

St. Thomas sailing itinerary...

Here is my itinerary for my November trip to St. Thomas.

With all the delays plaguing American Airlines these days (don’t ya just love a good pilot’s slow-down?), I chose to use Delta SkyMiles for the trip.  And since you can depend on Delta to routinely screw things up in Atlanta, I chose flights that allowed for a two hour fifteen minute layover.  That way, when the plane from Tampa to Atlanta is 90 minutes late because a cabin steward slept in or they can’t find a widget to fix the whatchamacallit or the captain breaks a fingernail, I will still be able to catch my 9:44 flight to Charlotte Amalie.  That means that I have a 6:00 am flight out of TPA… good times!  As one of my ex-military friends likes to say, I’ll be getting up at “oh dark hundred.”

I arrive in St. Thomas in the early afternoon and will grab a cab to the East End for my one night stay at Two Sandals by the Sea Inn.  Two Sandals is a four-room B&B that overlooks the American Yacht Harbor in Red Hook.  I prefer small properties to the big hotels.  Traveling is all about the experience and I have found little inns and B&Bs to be more hospitable and interesting than large hotels.  You’re more likely to get the real scoop on local happenings, the best places to eat and the must things to see from the proprietor who has a vested interest in both your return and strong recommendation.  Ferries leave from the American Yacht Harbor Marina for St. John and the British Virgin Islands.  Two Sandals is also very close to Secret Harbor Beach so I will have plenty to keep me busy until 3:00 pm the next day when I join the other students for six days of intensive instruction aboard a Blue Water Sailing School vessel. 

The next six days will be spent applying all the material I’m reading for my American Sailing Association 101, 103 and 104 certifications.  Getting through all this material before I depart is going to be challenging because all of my reports and tasks at work need to be completed before I get on that plane.  All totaled, the material in the Sailing Made Easy, Cruising Made Easy and Cruising Fundamentals comes to 390 pages, not including glossaries, tests, check lists, etc.   I should have signed up a month earlier so I would have more time to digest all this information.  I even have a length of rope at my desk so I can practice knots while I work.  There is so much to learn and know.  How the hell did Columbus get here and back so many times?

Anyway, I end the week at mid-afternoon on Friday, November 9.  I am tentatively booked at the Villa Santana, a small inn on Denmark Hill overlooking Charlotte Amalie that was the home of Mexican General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna in the 1850s.  During one of his several exiles from Mexico, the man who defeated the likes of Jim Bowie and Davy Crockett during the 13-day battle of the Alamo is rumored to have stolen a substantial amount of Mexican silver to build his stately home.  Although the great house was destroyed by a fire 1986, all of the outbuildings including the kitchen, watch tower, the library, a wine cellar and his attaché’s quarters have all been converted into what looks like a very quaint inn.  I have reserved La Torre (the watchtower) for a price considerably better than most of the hotels on the island.  Villa Santana looks to be located to most of the major landmarks of Charlotte Amalie and I have located a scooter rental place that delivers, so I will have some flexibility in getting around.

I hope the last few days will be relaxing, because it will be my last vacation for the year.  I usually take five vacation days around the President’s Day holiday so that I get a full ten days off in February, but that will be three months after my St. Thomas adventure.

The next three weeks will be filled with studying and other preparations.  I picked up a pair of open-fingered sailing gloves today and I need to make sure I have plenty of sun block, extra pairs of glasses, sunglasses, quick-drying shorts and other items necessary for a week aboard a sailboat.  The weather should be pretty nice since we will be at the tail end of hurricane season, but I have to be prepared for anything.

HP repairs their reputation...

Before I get to the rest of my trip I have to tell you about my computer saga.

I bought a new HP Pavilion lap top when my trusty old Dell was showing signs of giving up the ghost.  I did a lot of research and wavered between HP and Dell but the Pavilion ultimately won out because it had absolutely everything I wanted.  I don’t do a lot of video or play games, so I didn’t need the fastest processor or a gazillion MB of memory.  The Pavilion has a backlit keyboard that I find handy if I want to do some writing at night.  It has an Intel core i5 and Windows 7 so it covers the basics.

I bought an extended warranty (thank God) and had been using the computer for well over a year when I began seeing a problem with the screen.  It would occasionally dim and the images became blurry.  This began to become more and more frequent so I called HP to find out what to do.  Like any good-sized organization, they want to see problems resolved at the lowest level possible and the tech lady did her best to probe me for information that might give some clue as to what the problem was and, hopefully, a fix that she could talk me through over the phone.

That turned out to be a waste of time and she even managed to delete some files that I really couldn’t afford to lose, but at least I was able to reconstruct them.  (Note to self -- get a good cloud-based back-up system!)  So I had to send it in for repairs.  HP sent me a special box to ship it in and it included the label to get it to the repair location overnight.  Although I was not happy over the fact that I was without my computer, at least I had my little ASUS netbook as a backup and the whole process was handled very efficiently.  I received my laptop back on the appointed day, fired it up and the screen immediately dimmed and white streaks shot across the display from left to right.  So… over a week without my computer and it still wasn’t fixed.

The next day, a Saturday, I called the special repairs number provided and got their interactive voice response unit that claimed they were open, but no one answered my call.  The system also stated that I would have an opportunity to leave my contact information, but that didn’t happen either.  Perhaps I was supposed to call more than five times throughout the day to prove my sincerity in wanting to reach someone.  I finally reached a human being on Monday and we again arranged for my computer to be picked up and taken to the repair facility.  I wasn’t happy.  There were things going on in my life that required that I have access to OneNote, but I have the 2007 version on my netbook and the 2010 version on my laptop and, conveniently, they are not compatible (thank you Microsoft).

So the following Wednesday came with some anticipation of finally getting my computer back.  The day came to a close and no computer.  Hmmmm… maybe I misunderstood and it was being shipped on Wednesday.  Yeah, that’s the ticket.  Thursday came and went and still no computer.  The handy-dandy HP repairs website gives practically no information about the actual status of your repair.  As I sat and seethed, I became more and more angry about the situation.

I finally got ahold of someone in Mumbai or some other sub-continent call center.  She was very polite and offered to send an “urgent” email to the repair facility to get to the bottom of this.  An email.  No information was available regarding the status of my repair.  She could not contact the repair center.  She had no way to research the matter.  What she could do, was the modern version of push papers around on the desk… send an email. 

Not being satisfied with that response, I called back and spoke with a gentleman who was actually less helpful, which took quite an effort.  Based on the horrible experience I had endured, he suggested that I take out another year of warranty service.  I did, but did not feel right about the way it was presented.  I still could not speak to anyone in the repairs area who might be able to say if or when my computer was fixed, when it might ship or anything else one might want to know about a computer that had now been out of commission for nearly a month.

Enough.  It may not pay off, but I decided to send my own email to Meg Whitman, president and CEO of HP, and politely but firmly vented (no point in ticking off the one person who may be able to help).

To my great delight and surprise, I got a call the next day from CeCe in the HP executive office.  She apologized profusely and said that I was to deal with no one else going forward; she would be my sole point of contact until I had my computer back.  She had already been in touch with the repair center and said it was going through bench testing that day to make sure the problem was fixed.  She also said she would send a $200.00 gift card for HP products to atone for the problems I had gone through.  Having been in the customer service realm for nearly 20 years, I appreciated her professionalism and the fact that she took ownership of the situation.  Problems happen and mistakes are made – it’s how you fix those problems that counts and I was impressed.  I didn’t think there would be anything on the HP website that I would want to buy, but I appreciated the gesture (it turns out that they have a lot of items well under $200.00 that I am interested in).

That was Friday.  The following Monday, I got another call from HP, this time from a man who said that CeCe was off that day and that he was working her file.  He confirmed that my computer had been fixed (they replaced the screen altogether) and would be shipping it first thing in the morning.  He further stated that he felt uncomfortable with the way I had been sold the additional year of warranty.  He refunded the amount I had paid but let the warranty remain.

So the bottom line is, I got a $200.00 gift card and an extra year’s warranty for my troubles.  I would say that HP has gone above and beyond to remedy the matter.  I would have preferred not to have been put through all that, but I have to give credit to the HP executive office for doing a smashing job of restoring my faith in them.

Sailing lessons in St. Thomas...

Every time I start planning a trip I am racked with indecision… my list of “must see” places increases on an almost daily basis.  Do I go somewhere just for fun (Morocco, Chile or the Canadian maritime provinces)?  Go see friends and family (Key West, LA or Seattle)?  Or take a look at a potential retirement location (return to Panama, Costa Rica, Columbia or maybe Ecuador)?  Or do I take a week to go through the basic sailing courses that will allow me to charter a boat while traveling?  My problem is that I want to do it all.

If I go to Costa Rica or Panama I can get some dental work done at the same time and save money.  I could do a stay-cation by doing the sailing training in St. Petersburg or Sarasota.  And if I go to Key West I will just drink a lot of beer and maybe get in some diving.

So… sailing or retirement research?  After going out on a friends little daysailer two weeks ago, the decision became easy.  I’ve been putting off sailing lessons because I hadn’t done the research and so I just didn’t know where to put it in the list of priorities.  Well, I got so excited after a day on the water that I knuckled down and got the research done.

There are literally dozens of sailing schools in the Tampa/St. Petersburg/Sarasota area.  Lessons range from single classes taught at the various schools and the several yacht clubs, to weeklong get-the-basics-done courses.  In the course of my research I decided I want to get the three basic American Sailing Association (ASA) classes done all in one shot, so I can take single more advanced courses as I have the time and money.

As I dug a bit more, I discovered that I could take the same course somewhere in the Caribbean for only a few hundred dollars more than staying at home and get a great vacation out of the deal.  Until all of the frequent flyer miles I picked up with new credit cards post to the various mileage accounts, I really have to use either Delta or American.  So after comparing the locations of schools that offered what I wanted, had a reasonable cost and matched where I could fly for free using miles, I pared my list down to eight American Sailing Association accredited schools.

At a minimum I wanted to take the Basic Keelboat Sailing (101), Basic Coastal Cruising (103) and Bareboat Chartering (104).  Since I am very interested in someday having a catamaran (I think they tend to have more living space) I also want to take the Cruising Catamaran (114) course.  Many schools offer the first three as a combo because they only have monohulls, but three schools (Barefoot Offshore Sailing School, Belize Sailing, Blue Water Sailing School) offered all four classes. All three looked good, but I really wanted to attend Barefoot because it is located in St. Vincent and you spend the week sailing the Grenadines, a place that would be new for me.  Going to Belize was my third choice, in part because I have been there a couple of times in the last two years and would like to go somewhere new.  I figure that once I reach my destination I would spend a few extra days playing tourist and relaxing and while I could hop over to San Pedro to see my buddy Michael, I reallllly want to go somewhere new.

As it turns out, both Belize Sailing and Barefoot Offshore Sailing School were booked up and Blue Water Sailing School (BWSS) had availability, but not for the 101 through 114 course.  I suspect that if I had acted a few weeks earlier I would have had my pick.  So I will spend November 3 through 9 with BWSS taking the 101 through 104 courses in the gorgeous blue Caribbean waters around St. Thomas in the US Virgin Islands.  I wish I had been able to pick up the Cruising Catamaran class, but that will have to be done later either locally or on another trip.

I am really excited about this trip and I haven’t been to the Virgin Islands since 1986 (?) so it will be almost like going for the first time.  I am actually departing on Friday, November 2 before the cock’s first crowing and will arrive at Cyril E. King airport in Charlotte Amalie around 1:30 pm.  BWSS is located on the St. Thomas East End in the Red Hook area.  The folks at BWSS made a few suggestions for lodging and I chose what appears to be a charming B&B within walking distance of the American Yacht Harbor on Benner Bay where the BWSS boats are berthed.

Two Sandals by the Sea Inn only has a handful of rooms and I was able to get a single night reservation for November 2.  We board and start our voyage and classes approximately 3:00 pm.  Between now and then I have several books to read and pre-exams to take; this is going to be pretty intense.  There will be a maximum of six students aboard so our instruction is fairly individual and I anticipate studying together in the evening.  Our rates include the boat, instructor, provisions, fuel, ice, customs and immigration fees, books, certification fees and sales tax.  I noticed some other schools charge extra for books, taxes and a whole variety of things including the certification!  Our trip covers all costs except alcohol.  I may need to try out the local rums (Cruzan makes a black strap rum that is supposed to be quite good).

After six days at sea, we return to Red Hook and the balance of my vacation.  More on those details in my next post.