Far Old Enough

Today a friend brought to my attention that a swarm of other kids are trying to break Zac Sunderland's record.

I read these articles on the net about "how young is too young?" and child protection coming to set those parents straight for sending their child out on the water so young. The youngest attempting the sail is 13 years old.

My birthday is this week and needless to say I am definitely not 13. I haven't sailed the world yet.

So what's my problem?

Renting A Skiff on Elliott Bay

Today we had planned for well over a month to go on a hike at Wallace Falls which is a moderately difficult hiking trail with a beautiful grand finale of cascading waterfalls. Unfortunately, every last person we invited had to cancel for one reason or another and it turned out to be a bad day for us as well to go hiking. Instead, we decided to go for breakfast and think about what to do instead.

We discussed kayaking, sailing, or lake fishing in a couple of float tubes finally deciding upon renting a skiff at Kayak Alki and trying to enjoy the prime salmon fishing season while it is here.

Optimistically, we reserved the boat for three hours. The rental shop had let us know that this was an older boat... and it was the one with the somewhat unreliable engine. They had trouble getting it going for us, but we had oars as a backup plan. We weren't all that far from shore.....

There were tons of boats out there on the water today. Sadly, quite a few idiots. This was the thing that made us feel especially uncomfortable navigating the Puget Sound in what was only slightly larger than a dinghy. After this excursion, I understood why so few people bother to do it.

The fishing regulations are very much so in the fish's favor these days. It's not likely to catch a salmon when you can only use one hook without a barb. I think we use fishing as primarily an excuse to just be close to the water at length.

While trolling along hoping our chances to catch a fish are actually better than they are, a boat flew past us uncomfortably close and snagged my line on its prop. We hurried to quickly find a knife and cut the line before losing the entire rod. I'm sure that guy is going to be mildly displeased when he spends a few hours unwinding his engine... wish that would teach him a lesson not to fly around so close to people while they're fishing... but it probably won't.

The engine fumes off the shaky, unreliable, stalling outboard only made me think about how much more I love to sail than use a power boat. It made us both nervous to be on the crowded waters in a small boat that seemed to be incapacitated often. Between the fumes, the jerks, and the lack of biting fish, it made me get sickened more and more, we cut our trip in the skiff to an hour and came back.

What did we learn from all this? We love to SAIL at least a 30' boat.

I think it's my turn to try to buy a sailboat.

Insert Witty Title Here

Today we went to look at boats at the boat show. After seeing a few of these gorgeous hunks of fiberglass, my heart began to ache a bit about the failed past possibilities. About fifteen or so boats in, I didn't want to see any more boats and just wanted a beer.

On the way back, we stopped by the locks. We saw a boat we considered buying, "Bolero", as she passed through the locks. My heart sunk as I saw her there with the two kayaks on the deck and the young couple manning the decks. We passed on this boat after seeing it needed extensive work to bring it up to our specs.

The only way I can describe the feeling of seeing a boat out cruising that you considered buying is it is like seeing someone that you had a quick and torrid love affair with that ended abruptly. Your heart jumps into your throat a little and sinks a bit when you realize that could have been you out there enjoying the water on that boat.

We came home to one of our neighbors parked sideways in the parking lot taking a space we usually use. Just another example of how rude the neighbors are here. It made me imagine what it might have been like to just move to another slip with my yacht. People think I move too much... maybe it's because I should have been on a boat all along.

Perhaps we have saved ourselves immense heartache by not buying a boat yet and waiting until the time is "right". Perhaps we have also delayed our dreams out of our own fear of their consequences or their success.

Considering Kayaks

So we've been talking about the possibility of a couple of kayaks. What spurred this on was a magazine I found call Kayak Angler and the fact that we now live on a beach. The other thing is that a kayak would be cheaper and easier than any other boat right now because of the fact that we are living in an apartment. And after fishing on a couple of local piers this week with everybody and their brother the privacy and quietness of a Kayak sounds great. There would actually be a lot of benefits to owning a couple of Kayaks and if we ever do get the opportunity to live aboard the Kayaks could probably go with us.

So with that we are looking into how we can rent some kayaks to start with and will be taking a Kayaking class down here near the water in the next week or so. If we find we like it enough we are going to consider purchasing either a tandem Kayak or a couple of single Kayak in the next year.

Went sailing tonight!

Oh my God it was great! We got to go sailing on a friends boat tonight and got to sail in our first regatta. I was a little scared since its been months since I've been on a boat but it was like riding a bike and I got right back in the swing after just a little while. David, the friend who's boat we were on was great. He was laid back and patient and fun to sail with. He also had two other crew members on board, another lesbian couple who were also great. I'm sure Dene will tell the story in more depth but I'm just so excited I pinged my lawyer again tonight to see where things were. Then I went on the internet and looked at boat porn. I will own a boat someday. Just not sure what kind.

Bobbi

Sailing

Stay tuned for more, we are going sailing tonight. HOORAY!

If it weren't for the darned cast iron keel....

In a previous post, Zac Sunderland was mentioned as we happened upon an Islander 36' that we had considered purchasing. Yesterday, we heard that he is about to complete his circumnavigation on the evening news.

We are both a bit jealous of this amazing opportunity that this young man has been given. It's amazing to think that he has single-handed the entire globe and he is 17. I can't even fathom leaving the Puget Sound yet and he's gone around the world already. What the heck is my problem?!

If we hadn't gotten scared off by the cast iron keel these Islander 36 models have.... we might have bought the Islander we looked at. Perhaps it is a good thing we didn't.... but then again we could be sailing around the world right now.