Cindy's Perspective
I've not really spent much time blogging. Sam is much more experienced than me but I had to supervise a girls basketball game tonight at school and if your own daughter isn't playing, the games can seem to drag on. I thought I'd take time to give my version of why our first attempt at stepping the mast and raising the sails was a success.
Let me preface my reasoning by comparing that I anticipate our first attempts at sailing could be like the couples participating in "The Amazing Race".
Some couples fight and blame each other when it gets a little dicey while others encourage and support. Based on the dynamics of our relationship, I was already certain that when the excitement mounted in our attempts, there would be support and encouragement. Last night confirmed my suspicions. Although nothing catastrophic happened, there were some moments that tested Sam's patience. He passed! My first instructions were to clip something to something attached to the bow of the boat. (I don't know all the nomenclature of sailing yet and I apologize for that.) I was wearing gloves and it took what seemed like forever. I'm sure Sam was thinking,"what the heck is taking so d@#* long?" he never uttered a sound let alone asked me why I wasn't able to carry out the simplest of tasks in a reasonable amount time. FIRST POINT SCORED. After that was done, I had to go to the stern and help do something to the boom. Now given that my center of gravity is low to the ground because I have short, stubby, tree trunk type legs and some limited high school gymnastics balance beam experience, one would think my balance would be solid as I traveled down the skinny sides of the boat. Not so much. I looked like a college coed her first weekend on campus. Staggering like a drunken sailor, I inched my way to the cockpit and landed with a thud. The trailer had already bounced off the hitch once and when I landed, it would have been another opportunity for Sam to criticize my less than perfect form. Again, not a word was uttered. POINT TWO. After we raised the sails and tied them off he lead me to a seat and opened the hatch and produced our camping wine glasses and a bottle of yummy wine that I renamed Cindy Knoll instead of Windy Knoll. POINT THREE. He truly is the most thoughtful man I have ever met. He took our pics and the romantic moment was over because we were burning daylight. With all of the stuff out of the cabin except the tiller and rudder, we had a chance to really examine sleeping space. We are certain we have enough room to bunk overnight. Sam is about 6' 2" and with some curling of long legs (his, not mine) it will be very cozy and doable. To be honest, I get so excited with anticipation of how cool it will all be that I feel like a teenager anticipating getting their drivers license. I knew that purchasing this boat and then having to wait all winter and some of the spring before we can actually get on the water was going to be torture. And once again I'm right. It is. And last night really whet my appetite. The ONLY good thing is that this body has some time to prepare for a swimsuit. But that's a whole other blog entry....
Taking everything down and folding it all up wasn't bad at all. I had visions before we tried it, that the sailing hours would slip through our fingers rigging everything and half the day would be over before we even had the chance to get to the middle of the lake where speedboats would cuss us for being in their way. Turns out, we will have plenty of time and opportunities to make people mad.
Our first "at mast" was fun. And I think I can speak for both of us that just like our first date, it left us wanting more. ;-)
