From our new condo, we can see the lake and the
many sailboats that are on the lake from morning until evening - it didn't take
long and I decided that a new hobby was in order. I signed up for lessons along
with my wife and my son (who happens to live in Chicago).
We just completed a 16 hour basic keel boat class and it was a lot of fun. Our
instructor was a young lady named Jenny and she did just a really great job and
made everything look easy. We took our lessons from the Chicago Sailing Club which is located on in Belmont Harbor on the North side of Chicago.
A look at the main dock of the
Chicago Sailing Club - click on the link to visit their website.
The club is located at Belmont Harbor on the North side of Chicago - you can see
The John Hancock Building is just above the boats.
The crew! The young lady at the stern (sailing talk for the back of the boat)
was our instructor. The other two are my wife and my son - fortunatelely, we
all passed - I guess we had a very good instructor! The boat used for the
classes was a J22.
Another shot of the crew! (Jenny took the picture).
A view of Chicago from Lake Michigan - by the time our lesson ended
this morning, this section of the lake was filled with sailboats.
As we were on our way back to the harbor, the sailboat in the picture was just
setting sail!.
Next week we plan on either renting one of the club's J22s, or perhaps
taking advantage of one of their club sailing events.
August should be a fun month and I plan on spending a good deal of time learning
the language of sailing and practicing a few on my newly learned skills.
I took the plunge. The sailboat in the picture is a 1980 Ericson E26 - I am now the owner of a similiar 1980 E26 that is in really great condition. It will sail out of Chicago's Monroe Harbor under the name Weekend Escape.
We brought our new toy down to Monroe Harbor this weekend (05/27/06) - it is now moored and ready for the sumer sailing season.
