Despite the fantastic weather, through a twist of fate or bad luck, none of the people we’d invited sailing yesterday could make it, so we ended up going out with just the folks who live here.
That never happens. Unless we’re only going to the pumpout, that is.
Because the forecast was for wind and windier, we spent some time before we left cleaning the boat. When you live with small kids and crazy-busy people, stuff accumulates, gets tossed aside and neglected, and the cockpit is one huge horizontal surface that collects stuff. So we spent a few hours cleaning up the boat, which sounds thankless, but is satisfying in a way that cleaning up a land house simply never was. Seeing the cockpit all ready for sail just makes me go ahhhhhhh.
So all shipshape and prepared for the gusts the weather department said were happening, we headed, natch, to the pumpout first. Where we were met, oddly, by a group of folks who wanted to talk liveaboard. I got the impression in my scant few minutes of chat that they were not boat people at all… of course, that was aided by the fact that they were all excited to be at the fuel dock (the grottiest, most seagull-crap-covered spot in the whole marina), trying to drum up pleasant conversation with people engaged in dumping garbage, recycling, and gallons of human waste into their appropriate receptacles. Generally not the sort of activities one uses when one is talking up “the life”. I think they finally got the message when one of them, who had not addressed a single comment to me previously, pointed at my rather prominent (at this stage) belly, and asked “boy or girl?”. Couldn’t help myself. I replied brightly “Human! I hope!” and hopped back on the boat.
Finally, time to head out. The channel out of the marina has accumulated some pretty serious mud banks during all the storms this season, and they haven’t dredged it yet, so paying attention to depth matters. And due to the personality of the boat’s former owner, the only depth finder in the boat is inside, at the nav table. (Quick Aside: the way the former owner told the tale, he was in a rally, racing somewhere, and was such a dick (his words) to another racer that when they left the boat to go to dinner, the guy snuck over and codelocked his depthfinder. And in four solid years, the owner never bothered to fix it, since hey, he was in tropical water and “you could just look over the side and kinda figure it out.” No joke.). So it was a great opportunity to give Rowan an important job; keep an eye on the depthfinder at the nav, and let us know if the numbers go below five. Rowan totally dug having a real job to do, and we totally loved not slamming into the mud banks that have caught so many of our marina compatriots.
Not long after heading out, both boys went down for naps, miraculously freeing me up to actually… sail. Due to being The Mommy (which despite sometimes being annoying, I recognize as something temporary, to be cherished rather than railed against) and The Hostess, I rarely get to use the sailing skills I so carefully honed prior to our purchase. Mostly, I am involved in the care, feeding, and orientation of non-sailing folks, and it’s a great time. But this time, I actually got to drive the boat.
When I haven’t done something for a long time, natch, I start to wonder if I’ve lost the skills. Just a few days ago, I caught myself trying to remember some arcane bit of rules of the road, and having to look it up, which was kind of distressing. So imagine the sheer joy when we decided to tack, I threw a quick glance over my shoulder for a steerage spot, we tacked, and it turned out that my spot was the numerically perfect spot to have finished the tack. It sounds so simple and so dorky to be so excited by such a little thing, but there you have it. At least I can still feel the wind, and the boat and I can talk to each other about it, which feels profoundly good.
We headed over to the Aquatic Park, and practiced heaving-to just outside their walls, so that as we drifted, we still got a lovely view of the park and the City. Jason and I debated the arcanery of heaving-to in a catamaran versus the little J-24s we learned on, drogue placement in storms, and whether or not I’d actually read somewhere that in order to reduce the risk of pitchpoling in a cat, you should deploy the larger drogue from the aft and a smaller from the fore, both windward. (Anyone? I swear I read that somewhere, and cannot find it now.)
We poured ginger ale, sat in the nicely sunny and warm cockpit, and watched the City drift by. We’re not sure whether it was our windage (both water tanks were empty, so we were pretty high up in the water for us), or the fact that we required full jib up to stay hove, but we still were making between .5 and 2 knots, so we ended up back in the traffic areas in no time. I eased us gently out of being hove to, and we headed downwind for home as the wind picked up steadily.
There is something crazy-cool about cruising downwind with the waves at a steady 6-7 knots without even really trying, as a big old orange sun sets perfectly behind the Gate. We brought the sails down, headed into the Marina, where Jason executed another brilliant docking, despite the fact that the wind was howling by now, and pushing us square off the dock.
It was, to paraphrase Wallace, A Fine Day Out.
Tags: Sailing
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