29 October 2007

That Blessed Noise



That's me taking a picture of myself this past Sunday. I took it myself because there was nobody else on the boat. The weather was beautiful, the wind was light, and I had no kids to worry about. So I went out solo.

Sailing by yourself is different. Usually, I'm yelling at the crew, threatening them with winch handles and generally just making an awful lot of noise. Being by myself, I got to enjoy some of the sailing sounds that I usually don't get to hear.
  1. That little twang sound the forestay makes when hanking on the jib
  2. The oddly mechanical clang sound the breakwater buoy makes
  3. The far-off sound of sirens from shore while confident that even if it was you they're looking for, they couldn't catch you out here
  4. The water lapping against the hull making you abandon the tiller for minutes at a time looking for the disastrous hole in the boat that must be there
  5. The people on the pier gasping in fear as they think you're going to ram the pier
  6. The contented sigh as you relax in the cockpit knowing that it's a beautiful day to sail
What I'm not mentioning is the sound of wind. I'm pretty sure it never topped 5-6 knots as my top boatspeed all day was 3.1 knots and that rarely.

It was a great day to sail...a bit more wind and I'd have said a perfect day to sail.

3 comments:

Zen said...

I would say it was perfect...

You were out there.

You were in the boat not swimming for dear life.

You were not strapped onto the boat, hanging on for dear life.

No one was yelling at you call you new words, because they were hanging on for dear life.

you and the boat came back at the same time, under your own power.

Sounds prefect to me

Carol Anne said...

Amen, Zen.

And let me add, you didn't have to worry about whether you'd done serious psychological harm to a bat that had been snoozing in the folds of your mainsail.

Unknown said...

Having two small ones usually creating chaos on board, I definitely can relate to your post. Occasionally I will spend the night even if I don't have time to sail, just for that peace and quiet.