This is Roger Jenkins. You may know me best through my series of blogs about Adventure and how that can help Balance out the hectic, busy, overstressed lives that we all lead from everyday existence. I try to get across the message while this is just part of life full of deadlines, work expectations, bills to be paid, chores to be completed, appointments to be kept, getting the kids to soccer, to the doctor, to ballet, homework, home improvement projects, shopping, and on and on and on… It’s just life… But it can be stressful and at times almost overwhelming trying to fit it all in. We all need something to de-stress. It could be working out, heck it could be knitting, lol.
One thing I do know is that Nature can provide that Balance. Just looking at something beautiful like a mountain, the ocean, a red wood, a water-fall, listening to the breeze through the pines, the trickle of a stream, feeling the rising sun on your face, the wind at your back, the taste of salt on your lips at the shore, or the scent of pine in the woods these are some of the things that make you feel at ease and take a load off… Nature can do that.
When you add to this adventure, which I will define as an Profound Experience in Nature, then I feel that ramps things up further Balancing us.
Add in exercise, and the exertion and physicality of climbing, paddling, hiking, biking and so forth, this starts etching this Balance into our memory.
Then throw in the excitement and the daring of Adventure and all of your senses become heightened and the ensuing Balance becomes part of who we are and it is something that we can take with us for when we are back to the reality of a ho hum work a day existence because we are now more Balanced through Adventure.
The last part of this idea of ‘Pursuing Balance Through Adventure’ is that this is a Pursuit not a Destination. It is something to always be striving for there is always another mountain top in a sense. When you have summited that just means you need to find another mountain.
Most of my posts are regarding hiking and scrambling beautiful locals with a sprinkling of backpacking. I sometimes touch on other forms of adventure such as mountain biking, canoeing, kayaking, SUP, to name a few. The truth of the matter is that these all easily fit into ‘Pursing Balance Through Adventure’ and there certainly are a lot more.
I recently added PBTA OFF-ROAD. I purchased the Toyota 4 Runner TRD Pro to gain better access to my hiking and backpacking, but found through the enthusiasm of my 17 year old son, Alec, that is pumped about this new undertaking of adventuring of this nature, that this can it’s self be a means to an end as far as ‘Pursing Balance Through Adventure’ and not just a vessel.
So it only seems right that I am adding ‘Pursing Balance Through Adventure’ Sailing. Sailing is something that has been my life for all of my life. It is so natural manipulating the wind, waves, and current to propel yourself through nature by utilizing nature.
I love everything about sailing from the simplicity of a small dingy such as Sabot, to the physicality of sailing in surf on a short board sailboard, to the speed of an F18 flying a hull downwind under full spinnaker, the teamwork of a yacht, or the ocean going of a 45’ custom trimaran, the delight of reaching speeds never though probable on a 20’ foiling cat, or the record breaking Tri-Foiler.
It is always good to be out on the water be it a ski boat on a lake, a motor yacht cruising through Newport Bay, a houseboat on Lake Powell, or racing a jet ski snaking through a canyon. But the natural feeling of harnessing the wind in your sails it something that is always special. I love every aspect of nature and sailing from the lighter wind days of drifting slowly barely leaving a ripple, to under full sail in the Caribbean on a big cruising cat, to getting fully launched airborne on the steep short waves of Lake Michigan on a Hobie 20. It’s all good.
Add to this the excitement of competition, jockeying for position on the starting line, using right away rules, boat set up, tuning for conditions, playing wind shifts all to your advantage and you gain the full package. Sailboat racing is a moving chessboard using your mind, sails, and physicality to propel you past your competitors. I have been through many aspects of sailing competition from my meager beginnings on a Hobie 14 in Virginia Beach where we finally had enough competitors for me to get a trophy to sailing at the Olympic Trials.
So a hearty welcome to ‘Pursing Balance Through Adventure’ Sailing. It is all about profound experiences in nature under sail.
Have a Hobie Day!
Roger Jenkins
Pursuing Balance Through Adventure
‘Pursuing Balance Thru Adventure’ Sailing 
I always look forward to your adventures.
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