Maine Sailing Ships Semester
Hi everyone! Willa here, I’d like to tell you about the most amazing opportunity that has EVER come my way! I am excited to share that I have been accepted into Sailing Ship Maine’s fall semester at sea. I will set sail aboard the schooner Harvey Gamage with a group of peers and instructors in three weeks, and return just before Christmas.
While this may seem a little crazy since I’ve never sailed anything but a tiny boat, on a tiny pond at a little camp in small-town Maine, these crazy times call for crazy measures! There is nooooooo question that this adventure is out of my comfort zone, and while maybe not the Italian countryside immersion of my study abroad daydreams, the point is to be challenged in ways I’m sure I can’t yet comprehend, and to come out the other side stronger and wiser with some solid skills to boot.
This has all unfolded in such a way that it feels ‘meant to be’. I feel inexplicably drawn to the idea of living aboard a boat, and to experience the interconnectedness of the ocean to basically everything from this perspective! I am also excited for the small degree of normalcy in studying amongst peers for a moment without the stresses of all that is currently happening in our world.
Though I have the support of my family, and Sailing Ships Maine is able to offer a partial scholarship, I am reaching out to you all to ask for your support in stitching together the remaining costs associated with tuition and gear. Also, if anyone has any sailing specific gear laying around, or solid advice relating to sailing, avoiding seasickness, sailing gear, or life in general, I am here for all of that...please, and thank you!
If I am not able to raise the remaining funds in time for the fall semester, all funding will be directed towards the Spring 2021 semester.
Thank you so much for checking out my GoFundMe. I hope you will also take a moment to click on the link below to read about Sailing Ships Maine, and what will be their maiden semester long voyage.
https://sailingshipsmaine.org/in
All my best always,
Willa Jane Anderson
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”
-Mark Twain
