Hello. We are the Burch’s and we’re boataholics. Or so it seems, and we only have about two months to get our boating act together. The pressure is mounting. Forget about the spring maintenance and fix-it routines, we’re talking about education. As much as we think we know from 50+ years of inland boating there’s more to be learned, and especially so when you’re going offshore. And besides, we’re talking about stink-potters rather than the rag-pickers that we’ve spent our lives with.

To help us on our way there’s a terrific organization that’ll support you in any way that you’ll let them, and that’s the USPS. No, not the United States Postal Service, it’s the United States Power Squadrons. Since we have a local squadron, all-inclusively called the Louisville Sail and Power Squadron, we signed up for the basic “America’s Boating Course” to find out what we know and, more importantly, what we don’t know.

After we concluded the course (full disclosure: Janet did better on the final exam than Joe) Janet decided to progress to the Seamanship course since Joe had previous commitments for the evenings scheduled and figured he knew it all anyway ;-)