View of main cabin from my bedroom.
Dishes stowed, hat, sun tan lotion, anti sea sickness wrist bands, and work gloves on (I discovered that gardening gloves, the kind covered with those litter rubber bumps, with finger tips cut off are perfect for pulling ropes), I would untie the mooring and cast off with Roger at the helm.
If we had a wind, I would raise the mainsail by untying five straps that held the sail to the boom, release the latch for the line and hoist up the sail. The last few feet would become too difficult to continue by hand, so the line would be wound around a winch to finish the job. Then I would untie the line holding the jib (foresail) and pull the triangular sail open like a sideways window shade, and wind it around its winch and tighten. If the wind was right, the boat would begin to heel over (tilt to one side) and all the lines would be adjusted to obtain the maximum speed.
The way points would have been entered into the GPS (Global Positioning System), which we were lucky to have since the ships navigating compass had been temporarily replaced by a small car compass lamely duct taped to a metal bar in front of the steering wheel (it's not a perfect world). Off we would go wondering what the sea had in store for us.
Duct taped car compass
5 comments:
Scott,
Sounds like a great adventure. But I gotta tell ya, it gives me the heebie jeebies.
I *used* to like sailing at summer camp. However, a few years back Greg and I bought a small sail boat and after taking it out locally on a man-made, small lake, we hauled it up to the High Sierras.
We were out on a fairly large lake when a kid, about 10 yrs. old maybe, was riding nearby on his jet ski (evil machines) and decided to do a little sideways maneuver my kids call a "brody", no pun intended. Well, the wake from that headed straight for us and capsized our little boat...I mean mast-down. The boom hit me in the head and my legs got tangled in the lines as I went over. I was only holding my life vest in my lap, which is stupid, but promptly put it on when I reached the surface. That was not fun.
Fortunately, some other adults on the lake came by and helped us turn the boat upright, stayed with us as we sailed into shore, put that blasted thing on the trailer and headed back to the cabin where we were staying. A nice shower, a good bottle of wine and we began to unwind. Boat was put up for sale when we got home.
So give me large beasts and boogie boards anyday! ;-)
Melanie,
You know what they say, if you fall off a horse you should get right back in the saddle again or forever be too scared to ride. But sailing does seem to be male dominated. Stacy came one year for a few days. Never again. Being trapped on a small room with a porch doing essentially nothing for hours didn't appeal.
Scott,
That's true enough, and if I fell off a horse, I'd get back on. But that feeling of helplessness while floating in such deep water, so far from shore, was just too much for me. I'm going on a cruise next month though. Does that count? ;-)
I can do the sitting on a porch thing. I love to read so when Greg would go fishing (from the shore!) when we went camping, I'd just pull up my lawn chair and a good book. That was a luxury to me...hours and hours to read with no other distractions or obligations.
The problem with four people on a boat is that everyone is on top of everyone all the time. There is no personal space to be by yourself. There is no escape. You can't, like, go for a walk to get away for a few minutes. For those sensitive, it can be most claustrophobic.
I can certainly understand that. It's different when you have all the great outdoors to wander and the bathroom is further away from everyone you are spending time with.
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