Sailing the Caribbean - Learning the Ropes for $55 a Day

The Caribbean Issue - Sailing the Caribbean - Learning the Ropes for $55 a Day - NYTimes.com: "CONSIDERING that none of us newbies had any idea what we were doing, the voyage south from St. Lucia was going well. At 10:30 a.m., amid gray but not ominous skies, the S.V. Illusion — the 75-foot, two-masted schooner on which I and two others were novice sailors — had weighed anchor off the coast of Vieux Fort, a sleepy city at the island’s southern tip, and steered into deeper waters. The sea was mild, with five-foot swells rocking us just enough to make walking a conscious effort, and when Norman Garnett, the Illusion’s 61-year-old English captain, gave the order, we scrambled to pull, feed, winch and cleat a series of ropes that unfurled our three sails, which caught and tightened in the wind. We were sailing!"