But for the past several weekends, we have found
ourselves rattling around with nothing to do and noplace to go. We are just not used to that and it feels
wrong!
But this weekend, Chris and Sarah, the young couple who
bought our boat, took us out sailing. It
was a glorious perfect sailing day and it felt so good to be out on the
water. Chris and Sarah are good company
too.
I've often marveled at people who can just take some
lessons and then buy a boat and sail away.
Well, they aren't sailing away just yet (although they ask us questions
like "could this boat take us to the BVI's?)... but obviously they're
thinking about it. Knowing them, we get
to watch this process first hand. Chris
took the lessons and has been reading and studying up about sailing. Now he's bitten off quite an impressive
vessel for his first boat. Lucky for
him, we are still around to take him from theory to practice.
And that is just what we did today. Sarah has absolutely no sailing experience
and has now become a full time liveaboard.
She, along with their cat Lucy, complete this trio and it's going to be
a steep learning curve for them all.
Chris took Sarah (and Lucy) out sailing in the Gulf last week and it was
probably a mistake on his part. The
winds weren't bad but they had been and there were confused seas making the
experience an unpleasant one for Sarah.
I think Chris learned his lesson however, and will try not to repeat
it.
Today was a 180 degree turn from that experience for
Sarah. She was able to take short
periods of time on the helm while Bruce went through some of the boatwork with
Chris. I stayed beside her and talked
her through it all, explaining what to do, what to expect, and why we did what
we did. She is a quick learner and
already feels better about the whole thing.
I think she's going to be a natural.
We had a bit of an "event" while heading back
to the slip. We went out into the Bay,
which was quite benign. Chris was at the
helm as we approached the entrance to the Ship Channel, we pointed him in the
right direction, told him what he was looking for and let him go. When he got too close to the shallows, Bruce
sprung into action. We needed to be
downwind several boatlengths to enter at marker 43 and we were missing it.
Bruce pointed Chris in the right direction while he and I
took care of the sails. Chris did an
accidental jibe, which I saw coming but said nothing. I thought it wasn't going to be too bad, so I
took the mainsheet in as it began and no sweat.
We trimmed the jib and settled down for the short downwind run. Then we trimmed sails as Chris eased us
around Marker 43 and we were set.
One look at Chris and Sarah and we started to laugh. They both looked as if we'd had a near death
experience. It really wasn't that
bad... just a flurry of activity. As we talked through it and explained what
had happened, I think they both had a realization of just how much they had to
learn. But from my perspective, it was a
good thing to have an "event" and get through it. Lessons learned: Watch where you're going, have the boat ready
for action, and accidental gibes aren't a death sentence.
The rest of the sail was pleasant and uneventful. We had dolphins at our side most of the way. We talked Chris through his nervousness about
how and when to drop the sails and prepare to go into Piper Channel. We got it done while he was at the helm. Next time, I'll talk Sarah through it while
Chris does the work. He still took the
channel at a faster rate than we would have.
We still have that residual distrust of the channel depths from the old
days.
We ended up having dinner with Chris and Sarah at the
Cancun, our favorite Mexican food place.
The day was a much needed sailing fix for us both.