Down time.

One more day off before beginning a six day cycle of instructing ASA classes.  Teaching is what I now do most.  I also skipper boats on day charters and term charters.  I do yacht deliveries and private coaching with new yacht owners.  But the bulk of my work is teaching. 

When I first came to St Petersburg more than two years ago and went around looking for work with my Coast Guard license and sailing resume in hand, teaching ASA curriculum was not the first occupation I would have chosen.  I’d done some teaching back in the Pacific Northwest - in Portland and in the San Juan Islands - but I hadn’t done enough to feel entirely competent or very comfortable doing so.  But in St Petersburg, I realized that to get a foothold doing skipper’s work here, I’d have to be ready to do lots of teaching.  I committed to reviewing ASA curriculum and developing class outlines.  I spent a solid week at that before my first teaching assignment.  Student feedback from those first classes I taught was good, but over time and with more and more experience teaching and working with a variety of students, I’ve gotten much better.  Now I enjoy teaching.  I walk to the marina and to the boat that will be the classroom for the day, meet my two or three or four students, introduce myself and begin a conversation.  I am always curious to know where my students come from, what they do, what if any background they have in sailing, and what their sailing ambitions might be.  Some merely want to qualify to charter here in Florida or in the Virgin Islands.  Others have retirement in mind and cruising the Caribbean as live aboard sailors.  Whatever their goals, I am happy to be supportive.  My unique experience - long service in the charter boat business in the Virgin Islands and cruising the Caribbean from the Bahamas to South America - enables me to offer guidance and advice with authority.  I can field nearly any question.  I add context to my teaching with stories from my own experiences.  Students seem to love that.  I enjoy sharing them.  What I also enjoy is the process my students go through as they learn the skills and knowledge I share.  I am privileged to observe them go from fumbling to competency.      

But today I have the day to myself.  I savor the notion, the freedom to spend the day as I like.  A walk along the St Petersburg waterfront.  Reading from the backlog I have in a stack.  Correspondence.  Keeping company with our cats. 

Tomorrow and the five days following will be days full of teaching on a variety of boats: Hunter 31, Beneteau 37, and finally the thoroughbred – the Jeanneau 53.