Obsidian Potency 3.0
Sailin' On
posted Tuesday, 4 July 2006
I went sailing for the first time in many years yesterday. My friend Sandro is a regular sailor, and may be the only brotha I know with such a hobby. So he invited Rob and I to Annapolis for a sailing day. And since this isn't a simple life update, you can guess something intense happened.
The day was really nice when we started. Since Rob has been sailing with Sandro a few times before, he knew the drill and served as Sandro's first mate. I was just trying to get my bearings and some semblance of sea legs.
Once we got well into the Chesapeake Bay, a line of storms came through the area. There was lots of lightning, and the storms seemed to be right along the shore...which happened to be back the way we came, and the way we had to go. Since light was starting to fade at this point, and since the storms showed no signs of abating, Sandro decided to have us sail towards the river mouth and hope that the particular storm front in that direction would pass though and leave a calm gap for us.
It didn't.
The storm fron hit us, and wevery quickly had to initiate emergency protocols. We took the sail down, tied it up and put on our life jackets. My clip-on sunglasses blew off into the bay right when the front hit us (there goes another 90 bucks...goddamn it), and the waves were kickin.' This was no large boat with an inboard motor; it was small, and it had room for maybe 7 people max. There were no seats, and the inside cabin had room for maybe 3 people to crouch in (since there were no seats).
The weather was calm at the river mouth, so we headed through the turbulent waters that direction. Our outboard motor then cut out right as we got near the shallows - a bad thing, considering the boat would run aground if we couldn't power though that area. After some fussing, Rob got it running again. Waves were coming in the boat, rain was falling, and lightning was playing all around (and above) the Bay. I joked that maybe I should e-mail an epitaph to my weblog remotely.
We got to shore, and docked. I thanked God that I had worn synthetic quick-dry underwear and a similar t-shirt/short combo; otherwise, I would have been very uncomfortable in my wet clothes. Of course, I was also thankful that we didn't have to call for help of swim for shore. All in all, it was a fun little adventure.
The day was really nice when we started. Since Rob has been sailing with Sandro a few times before, he knew the drill and served as Sandro's first mate. I was just trying to get my bearings and some semblance of sea legs.
Once we got well into the Chesapeake Bay, a line of storms came through the area. There was lots of lightning, and the storms seemed to be right along the shore...which happened to be back the way we came, and the way we had to go. Since light was starting to fade at this point, and since the storms showed no signs of abating, Sandro decided to have us sail towards the river mouth and hope that the particular storm front in that direction would pass though and leave a calm gap for us.
It didn't.
The storm fron hit us, and wevery quickly had to initiate emergency protocols. We took the sail down, tied it up and put on our life jackets. My clip-on sunglasses blew off into the bay right when the front hit us (there goes another 90 bucks...goddamn it), and the waves were kickin.' This was no large boat with an inboard motor; it was small, and it had room for maybe 7 people max. There were no seats, and the inside cabin had room for maybe 3 people to crouch in (since there were no seats).
The weather was calm at the river mouth, so we headed through the turbulent waters that direction. Our outboard motor then cut out right as we got near the shallows - a bad thing, considering the boat would run aground if we couldn't power though that area. After some fussing, Rob got it running again. Waves were coming in the boat, rain was falling, and lightning was playing all around (and above) the Bay. I joked that maybe I should e-mail an epitaph to my weblog remotely.
We got to shore, and docked. I thanked God that I had worn synthetic quick-dry underwear and a similar t-shirt/short combo; otherwise, I would have been very uncomfortable in my wet clothes. Of course, I was also thankful that we didn't have to call for help of swim for shore. All in all, it was a fun little adventure.
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