A typical CYA Intermediate Sailing Course aboard Michaela

We meet in the parking lot at the Oak Island Resort and Spa Marina  at 0900 on the first day. We get acquainted and move our personal gear aboard. We then pack groceries and make a meal plan for the week.  At this point we know a bit about our shipmates!  Now we have a course meeting in the cockpit - we discuss the agenda for the week, what all of our responsibilities are, how the week will be structured, and safety.  Students are assigned roles (capt., navigator, log keeper, galley slave) and rotate daily.

The course is conducted as if the students were on a bareboat charter - but with an instructor/coach aboard.  The students make the bulk of the decisions, just as they would if they were on an actual bareboat charter. We go through the boat from stem to stern - learning about the various systems aboard with a particular emphasis on safety.

So where will we be going today?  The decision is made by the students (with guidance), after a review of plotting.  A reasonable destination is chosen and off we go.  Feel the refreshing ocean breeze on your face and the gentle roll of the waves as we sail along, amidst some of the most beautiful scenery in Canada (and without being too presumptuous, we think the world).

The destination may be a coastal community, or an unspoiled anchorage.  We do dinner and may continue with classwork. 

The voyage continues - We have a lot to do - as we work down the list of items in the course standard.  Destinations vary from course to course: but we get back to Oak Island on time.  Lots of sailing drills.  Man-overboard ( person overboard) (crew overboard) drills may from time to time involve the rescue of a real person (from the coast Guard, not one of the students).  We even take a break if our planning has taken us somewhere interesting, such as Lunenburg.  
Here's a typical track from an Intermediate course. Oak Island Resort and Spa is in Western Shore.

A typical CYA Advanced Sailing Course aboard Michaela

As in the Intermediate course, we meet in the parking lot at the Oak Island Resort and Spa Marina  at 0900 on the first day.  We get acquainted and move our personal gear aboard. We then pack groceries and make a meal plan for the week.  At this point we know a bit about our shipmates!  Now we have a course meeting in the cockpit - we discuss the agenda for the week, what all of our responsibilities are, how the week will be structured, and safety.  Students are assigned roles (capt., navigator, log keeper, galley slave) and rotate daily.

The course is conducted as if the students were on a bareboat charter - but with an instructor/coach aboard.  The students make the bulk of the decisions, just as they would if they were on an actual bareboat charter. What is different about this course is that we sail more; we may sail in poorer weather; we sail at night and we sail further.  

Here's a track from an Advanced course in the summer of 2007.  It was a one-way trip from Oak Island to Baddeck, in Cape Breton.  240 nautical miles.