Yep, there were just a few problems…
The day was finally here, we were taking our boat out all by ourselves and going sailing! We felt ready, we felt excited, we were totally scared to death! We pulled up at the lunch ramp and at that point we should have turned around and gone home. The parking lot was completely full of trucks with empty boat trailers. It turned out it was some sort of fishing season opener and EVERYONE was out with their boats. But we were determined to do it! We were ready!
The second reason we should have aborted our mission…it was really windy. Now remember the only other time when we had our boat in this bay there was NO wind at all and we had to motor about. Well not today. It was blowing, but we still felt we could handle it.
We got to work on raising our mast and disconnecting the boat from the trailer. All seemed fine, just some random bickering due to extreme tension. The boat came off the trailer easily and I parked the rig. At this point I was still thinking this is going to be a piece of cake, just jump on, start the motor, point the boat into the wind, raise the sails, and off we go…no problem. But alas, no.
Once I got on the boat and we pushed off from the dock the boat started moving in the wrong direction and not just a little bit. The tide was coming in and it was a big tidal swing so the water was really moving. Here was our next HUGE mistake. We checked the tides, of course, but we didn’t take into consideration the amount of swing between the high and low. In our bay it makes a big difference and with our lack of experience we should only be sailing on a neap tide day (a tide just after the first or third quarters of the moon when there is the least difference between high and low water). So now the boat is moving in the wrong direction and I’m yelling at Landon to use the motor to get us going correctly, but nothing was happening. We are heading towards the boats in the anchorage and the motor wasn’t strong enough to fight the tide. Don’t forget the wind is also blowing and it’s not helping matters, it’s working completely against us at the moment. I’m sure we are going to hit another boat and parish at sea. Goodbye.
At some point, after several minutes of screaming at each other, we hoisted the mainsail and started heading in the right direction, with the motor running still. I was thrilled, we were doing it, we were really sailing! Sort of. Landon had the opposite reaction and wanted to take the sail down and go in. So our next argument ensued. We finally agreed, and with the wind at our backs (which makes it seem so much lighter than it really is) we sailed away from the dock and launch ramp, not knowing if we would ever see them again…
