I Didn't Expect This...

A Radical Alternative to College

Sunday, April 13th, 2025

Writing to you from Denver, Colorado

I flew a plane this past week…at least for 95% of the flight.

In late November or early December of last year I made the decision to take the Competent Crew course aboard the Amundsen in the Falkland Islands. Along with that, I planned to come back to the states to become a private pilot and work as an EMT on wildfires again.

Well, one of those boxes is checked and the other two are in-progress…

While I was learning to sail, I had several of my crew mates tell me about how similar sailing is to flying, and how it was great that I was going to learn one after the other.

I didn’t realize just how right they were until this past week.

The only two major differences between sailing and flying that I have seen thus far is that maneuvers take longer in sailing and you don’t have to deal with as much traffic…oh and landing and taking off, of course.

Of course, there’s lots of other small differences, but the primary operations seem very s…