Joe Shields can see the wind.

"Here comes a puff," he says.

Five seconds later, the sails of his Flying Scot sailboat snap full and the boat picks up speed as it leans on its starboard edge.

I have that Beach Boys song "Sloop John B" running through my head.

We're on Lake Arthur at Moraine State Park. Two windsurfers, a canoeist and a few other sailboats are on the water. Shields wears a sun-faded baseball cap and keeps tugging the brim sideways, trying to keep the hat from flying off. The wind, he says, is fairly strong at about 12 knots.

Before I can get to "Well, I feel so broke up / I wanna go home," he rattles off directions in a whole other language -- one only sailors know.

Leeward, broad-reach, bearing off, heeling, tacking, batten, beam-reach, forestay, luffing, dagger board, close-reach, close-hauled, in irons, boom, shroud, chain plate, jib halyard, foot, clew, leach ...

Foreign though the terms may be, it's not too hard to pick up the lingo. Vicki Provenzali, 55, of Cranberry, learned the language during two winter lectures about sailing.

"Listening to them talk, after a while you just pick it up," she said. "The terms are screwy, but it makes it interesting."

After attending winter lectures at Northumberland Library, Provenzali attended a learn-to-sail program on Mothers Day conducted by the Moraine Sailing Club.

Sailing piqued her interest years ago when she lived in Cleveland and watched the sailboats on Lake Erie.

"I thought one day I wanted to learn about them. Then my birthday came and I turned 55 and I thought, 'You better get your butt out there and learn about the sailboats,' " she said.

So far, she's attended eight or nine beginners' sailing programs.

The programs, which are open to the public for a fee, teach a battery of required skills required to become certified as small boat operators by the U.S. Sailing Organization. The checklist includes jibing, tacking, steering, capsize recovery and crew overboard, among a host of other skills.

Joe Shields, 57, of McCandless, has been a sailing instructor since 1999 and teaches Moraine Sailing Club's learn-to-sail programs.

The only instruction Shields had his first time sailing was a diagram drawn in the sand. He went on his first sail during his honeymoon in the Virgin Islands. Bored of sitting around the beach, he rented a small sunfish sailboat from a man on the beach, who assured him there was nothing to it.

"I proceeded to go out and capsize every five feet, but got the bug and when I got back, looked into the Moraine Sailing Club."

Members introduced Shields to sailing with a "missionary zeal," and now he does the same for anyone with any inkling of interest.

A typical Sailing 101 program begins with an on-land explanation of the boat, its parts and how to handle it. Then, if the weather is cooperating, groups are sent out with one instructor per boat. Most learn on Flying Scots or the smaller, less complicated Sunfish style boats. Flying Scots have an eight person capacity; Sunfish fit only two.

Once the boats are rigged and ready, they're launched into Lake Arthur's Watts Bay and the participants take turns at the tiller or controlling the jibs (triangular staystails) and mainsail as the instructor makes suggestions and explains why you've suddenly lost all the wind from your sail or almost tipped the boat over on your last jibe (turning the stern through the wind).

During a lunch break, another land session is held and instructors set up tactics and skills to be worked on during the afternoon. It's what Shields calls "a very building-block approach."

For first-timers, it can be a lot to take in. But most seem to get the hang of it pretty quickly.

Javier Lopez, 52, of Island Park, began sailing this spring. He now makes the one-hour trip to Lake Arthur regularly and logs roughly six hours a week sailing.

"I was surprised at how rapidly one can pick it up. What happens the first time you go out after hearing the theory, you feel kind of awkward, but very rapidly, you learn very fast," he said.

He explained the instructors gave a lot of supervision in the beginning, but once he had the basics down, they gave him free reign.

"Then you go into a learning-by-doing phase and get better rapidly."

Lopez, who participates in several other water sports, first attended a learn-to-sail session because his daughter was interested, but he's the one who got hooked.

Twice now he has participated in the club's weekly Saturday races. How's he done?

"Not well," he said, laughing. "The attitude is not so much to be first, but to improve your performance and get better."

Shields said he's sure the Moraine Sailing Club would have died off long ago had it not been for its beginners' sailing program. And if not for similar programs offered by other clubs, he believes sailing would be gone from Western Pennsylvania entirely.

The club has three levels of membership: basic, racing and community sailing. The basic membership is $35 and those members can go to as many learn-to-sail sessions as they like. The racing membership ($100) registers skippers for racing series, and they can join in on race days. Community sailing is the full-blown membership. A $225 fee fetches members access to the club's Flying Scot, Sunfish and Optimist style boats, as well as all the benefits of racing.

Although Shields and Vicki Provenzali are leagues apart in terms of skill, both share a passion for the sport. Shields recites "I Must Go Down To The Sea," a poem by John Masefield.

"For me, there's nothing like it," he said.

Provenzali, a Native American, says sailing has helped her to connect with her beliefs and teachings.

"It wakes up all your senses. You can feel the wind, which way the wind is coming, you feel it," she said.