What To Do Now...

So, in order to make use of the rather expensive captain's license, I've been diligently looking for work in the sailing milieu out here.

All last week, I'd been trying to get an "interview" with OCSC, the school where I took the captain's class. It looked like a top notch organization, so I wrote up a resume and cover letter and sent it in. The CEO e-mailed me back and said he'd like to get together for a test sail when the weather was conducive (meaning 15+ knots). I was basically on-call for the entire week, constantly checking in to see what the wind was like in Berkeley, and constantly waiting for the CEO to call me back. In the mean time, I built shelves for the garage to free up space for the shop. Of course, the CEO wanted to get together on Thursday afternoon, but I already had a job interview at Club Nautique scheduled.

Thursday afternoon came around, so I headed over to Club Nautique, a US Sailing school on Alameda. I got dressed up in my California interview clothes, which consisted of a Tommy Bahama shirt and dress slacks, and went to their office. We had a nice chat and he asked if I had time for a sail. Since I'd had such a hassle with OCSC, I said, "Sure", donned a moldy orange life jacket, and we headed out to a Colgate 26, a boat I've never sailed before. He told me I was to act like I was the instructor and he was the student. I pretty much nailed everything but forgetting to bring the fenders in. There were some interesting philosophical and terminology differences between my experience and a US Sailing school, but they just provided fodder for discussion. I also nailed a fender overboard drill first time, using the Figure Eight method, so I was pretty happy about that. Once he put me through my paces, he shook my hand and said, "You know your shit." Then he reiterated that as soon as I get my license in hand, they'll get me on the water. We had a nice sail back into Ballena Bay Marina, and I drove home slightly mussed and sunburned, but feeling very positive about the experience and Club Nautique.

Friday, the CEO was finally able to fit me into his schedule. I ran over there in the afternoon. He told me to check out a boat and set it up, he'd be down there in a bit. It was a J24, another boat I'd never been on before, so I did my best. He kept me waiting for almost an hour after I had the boat as ready to go as possible. When he did finally show up, he had on over $1000 worth of foul weather gear on, compared to my shorts, jacket and PFD. We looked at each other and I knew we were philosophically very different sailors. Then we discussed how I'd rigged the boat wrong. Come to find out, the jib halyard had been pulled to the top of the mast, so I could only use the spinnaker halyard to rig the jib. We sailed out of the slip and he put me through some serious maneuvers (i.e. tacking every five seconds until he said stop). I think I did rather well on a boat that is considerably more performance oriented than anything I'd ever sailed before. He said that I was knowledgeable, but I wasn't ready for a J24. I thanked him for his time and we sailed back in. He let me put the boat away too. I did my best, considering it a test of my character, thanked him on my way out and drove home feeling like I'd just failed an Olympic tryout on a boat I'd never sailed before. I vented for a while when I got home, and we decided I didn't want to work at a place like that anyway, we're cruisers not racers. He should've spared us both by determining I had no racing experience on a J24, which is all they evidently care about, not about my ability to teach sailing. I'm glad I had the previous experience with Club Nautique, or I would've been pretty dejected.

Saturday, we stood in line all day at the Oakland Parks & Recreaction Job Fair. It was rather obvious from the demographics that not many were there to apply for the sailing instructor position with Lake Merritt Boating Center. Unfortunately, we all had to stand in the same line. For the same reason, it wasn't difficult to deduce who the other sailing candidates were, so we ended up getting grouped together and chatting. During the conversation, it came up that one guy had taught at Lake Merritt before, one guy was an Eagle Scout, one guy had sailed on the Chesapeake, and I had my captain's license. Once I said that, Mr. Chesapeake said, "I guess you'll get the job then" and promptly stopped talking to me. Finally, four hours later, I got to my interview with Captain Sarah, the lady with whom I'd been e-mailing with about the CraigsList ad. She apologized, saying this is the worst she'd ever seen it. I thought to myself, "Oakland has 11% unemployment, what did you expect?" I told her the last job fair I was in was 1986, and I just walked up to the booth for the job I was applying for, a much more efficient method than what I'd just experienced. Anyway, she was very cool. I told her about my licensing experience, that I was getting ASA 101 Instructor certified this week, and that I had a job waiting for me at Club Nautique where I'll get US Sailing Instructor certified. I mentioned that I was interested in their "Science of the Bay" daysail offering. She asked if I had a science background. I promptly replied, "I'm a Mechanical Engineer from the Missouri Institute of Science & Technology, I'm all about the science." I also inquired about the overnight trip to Angel Island, which I thought sounded like a fun thing to do with a boatload of munchkins. We shook hands, and she said it would take them a couple of weeks to make their call list.

Yesterday, I took my whiz quiz for my captain's license, which was quite an adventure. The "clinic" was a hole in the wall in downtown Oakland. When I gave the doctor my "sample", he spilled it all over his desk while pouring it into the "go-cups" (pun intended) that are sent off to the lab. He didn't seem perturbed about this. I neglected to shake his hand upon exiting the clinic. Also, they only took cash.

I then ran over to Club Nautique to take the US Sailing exam, which is part of their hiring procedure. I got a 99%, and was miffed that the one I missed, I had waffled on. They congratulated me on my score and said they wished I had my license, as they needed me to work this weekend. I assured them that I am diligently working on my checklist for the license. I forgot to mention that the other day, when the CN guy saw my resume, he wanted to get me on the fast-track to instructing as advanced classes as I could handle (their pay scale is commensurate). I assured him that I was interested in advancing as far as I could and I told him I was currently working on an online Intro to Celestial Navigation class. He mentioned that they're developing their own online school. I promptly mentioned that Kim does large websites. Club Nautique takes several boatloads of their students out to the Farrallone's and down to Santa Cruz and Half Moon Bay for multi-day offshore classes.

Today, I'm finishing up my preparations for my ASA 201 class tonight with Lisa Chapin. She's doing 201 and 203 so she can open up a school and we can certify SailTime members. I'll eventually move up the ranks in ASA, just like I plan on doing with US Sailing at Club Nautique.

Last night, we had some excitement. Kim hired a new cleaning lady, so they went through the place yesterday pretty thoroughly. After Kim had gone to band, I went to work on my captain's license stuff, but my folder was gone. They had inadvertently thrown it away because I set it on top of my trashcan. So I got to spend a half an hour digging through our dumpster. Today is trash day, so if I hadn't noticed the missing paperwork, it could be at the dump by now. Whew!

Next week, it's finding an American Red Cross approved Adult CPR and First Aid class, my California driver's license, and helping Lisa get ready for the Strictly Sail boat show. Other than that, not much going on out here...