Capsizing in the Pacific

So...last weekend, Craig and I decided to sign up for sailboating lessons. If you ever visit Anacortes you will know why. There are beautiful sailboats everywhere and it is so tempting to go out there and join them. We thought sailboating lessons would be a good way to start on possible sailing adventures. The lessons were two days long and we were pumped! We got up on Saturday to a windless sunny morning. When we walked into class, the first thing the instructor said to us was, "oh, you must be Craig and Katie." Okay...a nice warm welcome.... and then the second thing, "husbands and wife's can't sail together on the first day." Hmmm...okay. Craig and I sort of looked at eachother. The instructor went on to explain that through her experience she has found it is a bad idea to put a husband and wife in a boat together on their first day of sailing. It made me wonder how many times she has seen a wife or husband throw the other out of the boat out of frusturation. I guess you're less likely to throw a stranger out than your own spouse. Okay, we went with it. So the third thing she said was the icing on the cake, "One requirement we have for all students is that they must capsize the sailboat, flip it back over, and get in." Oh boy. Craig and I looked at eachother and gulped. The instructor went on to explain that we shouldn't worry because she guarenteed us that indeed our life vests would keep us a float and she would "rescue" us if we so needed. She also went on to explain the effects and symptoms of hypothermia. Hmmm....this doesn't sound so fun anymore... Now, if we were in the warm caribbean waters this might seem like a good idea but way up north here, we are lucky if the pacific waters are much above 50 degress. Oh boy. With hypothermia, sharks, and drowning on our minds...the lessons went on and we finally got out into little two person sailboats. There was barely any wind so it wasn't too scary and it really was a lot of fun. I have to admit that I'm not very good at steering the boat and swapping sails at the same time..I often forget that I'm doing one and just do the other. This results in me spinning into some pretty tight circles with the boat at a pretty big slant. Maybe we should learn how to recover from a capsize after all. I think we both made it through the first day without getting hit on the head with the boom and we overall had a good time. Class was over for the day but we had to look forward to the dreaded capsize the next day. Sigh. Neither of us slept well since we both woke up explaining all the dreams we had about capsizing. To make matters worse, we woke up to an extremely windy day with not a break in the clouds. It was freezing out. I had sweats and a jacket on. We debated not showing up for the class and skipping this whole capsizing thing. Neither of us could talk ourselves into that, so we dragged our cold selves to class. We ended up standing on the dock shivering as the instructors got the sailboats ready. There were a total of six people in the class and all of them had wet suits on except one lady and Craig and I. I have to say at this point I somewhat panicked. There is no way I am getting in this water..I'm freezing just standing here dry. Craig and I tried to figure out a way to....well...make an excuse to leave, but everything we came up with was way to obvious. So here we are minutes from being stuck in a tiny little sailboat and being tipped over into 50 degree water. The instructor kept telling us not to worry...our life vests would keep us a float. This I knew, I was worried about well...freezing! How did we get ourselves into this? So we got on the sailboat, Craig trying to figure out how he wasn't going to land direclty on the sail when it tipped and I'm trying to figure out how in the world I wasn't going to get tangled up in all these ropes. There wasn't too much time to think as the boat started tipping. There it was...the nearly freezing water inches from my face. Splash! Sailboat tipped. A freezing Craig and Katie. I have to say...I've been in cold water before but this was different. I couldn't breathe! I kept trying to inhale but to no avail. It was at this moment I realized that I didn't have a clue what I was supposed to do now that I was in the water. Because I was so distracted with not wanting to get in the water, I didn't hear a word they said explaining how to get back out of the water. So the boat is tipped, and I can't breathe. Craig starts swimming to the other side of the boat (he must have listened). The instructor starts yelling at me to throw over the rope. I'm freezing, and I'm supposed to be functional? To think that I acutally paid money to do this. So which rope to throw over...I dont know, there are only about 20! Panick! I grabbed one, prayed it was the right one and tossed it over. I hung on to the boat and Craig, my super duper husband somehow does something with the rope and flips the sailboat back over with me in it. Everyone starts yelling at me to help him in. So I "run" over to the back of the boat, grab his life vest and help him in. Whooo weee! Finally, the capsize was over. We got out of the boat, gave some high fives and ran to the car to crank the heat. I was pretty proud of Craig for flipping over the boat so quickly and proud of us both for at least giving this capsizing thing a try. We just chalked it up as one of our many weird adventures. At the end of the day, I think we were both glad we took the class, we have a new respect for pacific waters, and we agree that boats with motors are a better fit for us. :) P.S... I really wish I had some pictures of this weekend...but ...my camera isn't waterproof.. :)