Sail away sail away sail away

Ahh there's nothing like spending a day out on the bay with just the feel of the wind rushing past your face and the sound of the waves hitting the sides of a sailboat as you're nicely heeled to the wind.

If you couldn't tell, I went sailing out on my aunt's boat for the first time in over a year today. We just went out for a couple of hours, but it felt so nice. I love the moment when you turn the engine off and hoist the sail (I'd forgotten how much work that is). It was just so relaxing to be out there, trimming sails, getting bruised knees and pulling 6 knots. Unfortunately, the weather in Michigan has a propensity to change every 5 minutes or so, and soon the winds were gusting above 15 knots and it looked like a storm was rolling in, so we decided to head back to port and not get drenched and be a nice lightning rod in the process. I got to take the helm for the return trip. My steering of a sailboat needs some work, but hey, it's been a while. On the way back we saw a boat that looked real familiar (there's only so many 65 foot blue hulled sailboats in the Saginaw Bay) and my aunt was commenting on it, thinking that it was only a 45 or 50 foot boat until I caught the name of it on the back. It was Dolphin, the fastest boat on the Bay, she always wins the races, but she's built to race. So in order to help me steer, my aunt just told me to follow Dolphin. Yeah, easier said than done, but we eventually got back into the harbor, after another brief lesson for me on how to lower the mainsail. Ah well, my sealegs will come back eventually. Of course, the most interesting part of the day had to be when my oh so serious aunt started dancing to "Ice Ice Baby" by Vanilla Ice. She can't dance! I was successful in not laughing aloud though. I was doing pretty good towards the end of the lil trip. And I remembered my knots fairly quickly. I just gotta get out more. I can't wait to have my own boat someday. I've already decided to be a lab geek and name it Staph sailicus, since people name their boats the darndest things. Gotta just go with the flow. I'll have my own boat...


...someday