I used to sail out with water deliveries during the occupation. It was a power to the people stance that most San Franciscans appreciated during those times. The government didn’t though.

Painting by Salvador Dali

When you step aboard a sailing vessel with the knowledge that your stone-age ancestors, while grunting orders, moved about the waters it can almost be considered a welcome mat laid out for that first step to learn how to sail.

And then you might want to appreciate the fact that sailing is simple though always offering new experiences. This automatically gives you the potential to be as good at the skill of sailing as anybody.

You might want to look at the fact that the first sailors were probably not wealthy, nor even on the upper end of intelligent, but were more curious than most about how to travel by water.The first sailors probably created their own ways of staying safe on the great mystery of the seas.

That’s the romantic side, then there is the practical side that probably started the whole sailing thing. You might want to trace the concept of sailing back to the need to get from here to there and possibly back again over some water.

Why go sailing? That hole in the water you pour money into… that experience of having a whale come alongside and stare at you steering… that time of peace when the light breeze glides you atop a mirror sea?

But, the fanaticism that people who continue to take that first step every chance they get should tempt the curiosity nerve somewhere in their consciousness.

Some people are afraid to take that first step aboard a sailing vessel because of a fear of the unknown and maybe eyeing all those lines and wires and sails and sticks up in the air.

Hey Katherine, I also do Black maritime history and heritage and have done a bit on the Chesapeake Bay Pilot Schooner in collaboration with the late Geoffrey Footner, my buddy, Marcus Asante and another late brother, Vince Leggett.