I’m Sailing

I decided to sleep on the deck that night, but woke in the morning and almost fell overboard as I had to chase down my blanket and pillow that had flown off me in the early morning gusts of wind. Lucky that I did sleep on the deck because, once I had tracked down my bedding, I quickly realized that our anchor had come loose and we were quickly drifting towards another boat that was anchored behind. We pulled anchor and found another cove that was better protected to have breakfast and go for a quick snorkel. A short while later we looked out to the channel and saw that the wind was blowing quite hard that day, and quickly made our way out to have some more and see how fast our 50 foot boat would go. For those of you who have never been sailing, or been part of the crew, I will do my best to explain the excitement and adrenaline rush that comes with it. First off, the wind was howling that day and Suzanne said that we should probably not run with a full sail to control our speed. Rob, being Rob, said no way and that we should see what the boat could do. Let me point out here, that had Rob said we should put a reef in to control our speed, Suzanne would have been the one to say no, and that we should give it her all. Soon we will at full tilt and blazing down the Med. At one point, I would like to say around 14 or 15 knots, Rob leaned over to me to say, loud enough for me to hear, but quiet enough for Suzanne not to, that we probably should have put a reef in. Regardless, we hit a top speed and safely had nothing but fun! Sailing is really interesting. At some moments you are surrounded by nothing but the wind on your face, the lull of the ocean, and peacefulness. On the other hand, some moments are stressful, hard work, and filled with nothing but rushes excitement. There are few other moments in life that I can compare to the moment when you are about to turn the boat a full 90 degrees, have a giant boom swing from one side of the boat to the other, have to pull lines in on one side and send them out on the other , and oh, did I mention that the boat you are turning is 50 feet long? Pure fun.



But like all good things, our day of racing around had to come to an end as we had hoped to make it to Corsica by the following day. So reluctantly, we dropped sail and made our way to the next bay to make some dinner and spend the night. Once anchored, the ladies made a wonderful dinner that we sat on the deck and enjoyed, followed by some cold beverages and lots of conversation. That night a wind storm came our way and Rob, Mike, and I slept in shifts to make sure that our anchor would hold. Our anchor held and we awoke in the morning to blue skies.