(7th Consecutive Post!)
Today mom learned that you don’t have to take the course to go sailing; you just have to take the course to be the one actively sailing. So she was all, “Really? Then I can go sailing with you!”
And that’s how Owen, mom and I ended up going sailing together. Or so we thought. (DUM dum DUUUM!)
We got there, and there were two women inside in front of the sign-in sheet. As I was signing in, one of the women said that we could use the boat they had just taken out, since it was still put up.
I said, no, I’d like to take boat six, since I wanted to teach Owen how to put a boat up.
I started walking down the ramp into the water to get the hull, and Mom and Owen stayed up on the dock. Because they didn’t want to get wet. Sh’yeah. I explained that if they were going to be putting the boat together, they were going to get wet. So Owen came with me to get the hull while mom waited in the shallow water. We tied it up to one of the colored pegs on the grass, and started bringing everything out from the boathouse. (Rudder, Daggerboard, Sheetline, Mast, Sail.)
I told Owen to get the sheetline. “Know what that’s called?” I asked him.
He didn’t know. “It’s the sheetline.” I told him. I did that a few times.
There’s a bunch of little laminated sheets in the boathouse with instructions on how to put a boat up. Mom held it and read aloud while I showed Owen which parts were which and went where.
We were still putting the boat up when Ralph showed up. He asked how old Owen is, and mom said, “He’s ten.”
“You’ve gotta be eleven to go out in a sailboat.” He said. “No younger, no exceptions.”
To be fair, I had told this to mom. But she has certain problems with interpretations that make it hard to communicate.
Owen, disappointed, leaned his head into mom’s side for most of the rest of the time I was putting the boat up. He watched me attach the rudder, but that’s pretty much it. Now I would have to go out on my own, since Owen couldn’t come, and mom couldn’t leave him alone.
Finally, it was time to take the boat out. “I guess I’m going out on my own for the first time.” I grumbled, facing the boat into the wind. I was, honestly, a little pissed at mom. I still didn’t know if I was comfortable sailing on my own, but that was outweighed by the part of me that didn’t want to have driven here for nothing. Still, it would have been nice to go out with mom.
Mom helped me raise the sail, and steadied the boat while I hopped in. I sat on the left side of the boat, held the tiller in my right hand, and the sheetline in my left, and headed for the beach on the other side of the lake. This was it! I was sailing on my own!
On my way to the beach, I talked to the sail to comfort myself. Some superstitious part of my brain had convinced the rest of me that, by acknowledging that the sail was self-aware, (which it isn’t) it would feel more secure, and therefore like me better. I do that sometimes. Mom had said she and Owen would go to the beach, so I tried to sail around as close as I could to the beach and see if I could see them. I thought I saw them a few times, but I never really did.
After I gave up scanning the beach, I decided to try heading to the end of the lake. One small problem; I had wandered into the calm belt. Sorry; One-Piece reference. What I mean is there was almost no wind. I turned around from one side to the other, sometimes catching a bit of wind and going relatively fast, sometimes not moving at all. Most of the time I was going so slow that It seemed like I was stationary, but just fast enough that if I stuck my hand in the water, I could tell I was moving forward. Finally I decided I would just head back to the boathouse, since I wasn’t having much fun out on the lake. But one thing; heading back to the boathouse would require moving.
So I angled my sail around where I thought it would get some wind, and waited. And waited. There were some points where I didn’t even have to hold on to the tiller; it wouldn’t have mattered, I was going so slowly. I made up two songs about sailors wishing for the wind to blow them where they wanted to go. Guess where I got that idea?
After an eternity of waiting, I came up near the green and red barrels on front of the boathouse. These are the barrels you’re supposed to sail through when you go out, and when you come back in. I could see mom and Owen waiting for me on the grass. So close, yet so far. Getting a bit impatient, I started moving the tiller back and forth, using the rudder to sort of “paddle” my way there. It got a little faster, but not by much. At one point I saw a canoe go by with two people in it. They didn’t have to rely on the wind to go anywhere. “What I wouldn’t give for a paddle right now!” I shouted to them humorously. One laughed. The other kept paddling.
I finally got close enough to the boathouse that mom and Owen waded out and pulled me in the rest of the way. At one point the daggerboard ground against the lake bottom, but we got the boat safely in.
When we had gotten the boat apart, I waded out to the buoys with Owen to put the hull back. When we had locked it safely in place, I told Owen to get in the cockpit. He climbed in, with some difficulty, and I rocked the boat back and forth. I tipped it to port; “You’re turning!” I shouted. I tipped It to starboard. “You’re turning again!” Ralph was watching from the grass, smiling.
Mom started a conversation with Ralph. He told us about the day he had been sailing with his friend on separate boats, and they had gotten caught in a storm. If you can’t be a good example, be a horrible warning, right? While he and mom were talking, Owen and I watched the water for baitfish, jumping out to escape the bass chasing them. Some of them would jump really high, too. Ralph told us that sometimes, if you waited, you would see the bass jump out of the water after the baitfish.
Soon the sun was setting, and it was time to head home. As we were walking back to the car, I told Owen; “I’ll take you sailing on your birthday.”
I meant it.
(7th Consecutive Post!)
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