Nick Hall
Wake up at dawn to prepare your boat. Feel the wind on your face as you race across the clear blue sea. Fall asleep on the beach under a sky full of stars. On this course, you’ll learn about sailing and working as a member of a team. Learning to navigate by nature’s rhythms, you’ll explore a sea that’s rich with marine life. You’ll start with the basics of sailing these unique Drascombe longboats—reading the wind, navigating, managing sails, and more. Camping on the desert beaches at night puts you in a totally different environment, one of shallow tide pools and desert plants and animals. You’ll learn what you need to know about camping and taking care of the environment as you travel each day. While you travel, you’ll meet and interact with members of coastal communities, gaining opportunities to practice speaking Spanish and learn more deeply about the area.
All NOLS students arriving in Baja are met at the airport and transported to the campus by NOLS staff. Let us welcome you to Baja!
As you journey along the coast of Baja California, you’ll focus on the most important part of this course—your growing leadership skills. Leadership will be a part of everything you learn—learning to sail in challenging weather may be a lesson in decision making. Making decisions about your group’s goals is an opportunity to practice communication, and interacting with fishing communities is a chance to develop cultural competence. Each day you’ll fill a different leadership role, be an active member in a small community, and discover your leadership style. These skills will stick with you for the rest of your life, preparing you to be a leader wherever you choose to go.
“I discovered and learned more about myself in 22 days then I had in 22 years. When you’re thrown into a new environment with new people, new surrounding, and a new skill you have to learn you discover the strengths inside yourself quickly and you find out how to ask and receive help from others. I had never even been on a sailboat before in my life and by the end of the trip I was captaining a boat filled with only other students.”