The freezing temperature today made it a perfect day to spend indoors at the Seattle Women’s Boating Seminar. It was my third time attending and I’m amazed how much there is to learn from the women giving the lectures and how inspiring it is for me to attend. Being held at the end of Winter, it does tend to get me out of my winter boating blues and thinking of our next cruise this summer and how we should prepare for it.

Today I learnt about using our Radar from Linda Lewis who was very practical in her approach and made it seem simple – boy did I wish I did this before our trip last year when we sailed in the pea soup fog around the San Juan Islands and Straits of Juan de Fuca.

Nancy Erley talked about leadership roles comparing Captains Kirk and Bligh which I think Jim really needs to attend!!  Nancy has circumnavigated the globe twice and runs a womens sailing course on her own boat Tethys.

Lynne Reister an accredited marine surveyor talked about surveying your boat and showed great pictures on what to look for which led me to think that perhaps I shouldn’t be so hard on Jim when he says he needs to do maintainence on the boat – especially after the stories of how boats end up sinking while still moored!!!

Wendy Hinman who has a lot of sailing miles under her belt gave us tips and tricks on cruising which were really useful and has a great blog Velella’s Adventure which has more information crucial for our big trip.

We also heard about spring maintainence from Judy Nasmith which made me think more of Jim and how much work we both have to do to get the boat ready for the sailing season. So Jim, please spend as much time as you need on the boat to fix er up!

The last talk of the day was given by Kaci Cronkhite who has run the wooden boat festival at Port Townsend for a number of years. She gave an inspirational talk of her life and how she started sailing and circumnavigating the world  with Nancy Erley.

It gives me great inspiration that there are a lot of women out there sailing whom have done a lot of miles with a much experience and are interested in teaching and educating those of us who are just starting out. To think that these great lectures only cost a measly $90 which probably only covers the venue and lunch is a testament to their dedication to education!

So to all you women sailors out there – it’s time to get your boat ready for this years sailing season. Get out there and enjoy yourselves!!