FALL SAILING, 2001 I can’t remember the date, exactly, but our first sail after our “summer break” was not our best time out. We fussed, we fought, we had some fun, but it was work. I think it was still too warm, or we were getting out of shape, or maybe we were just tired. It was certainly good to get sailing again, and we probably had a better time than we would have anywhere else, but otherwise there is not much to tell.
Saturday, October 13 was our best sail yet. We went down the river and back, the temperature and humidity were perfect, the wind was perfect, the water was calm and lovely. Just like the last time, there is not much to tell; things simply went better this time. Everything just clicked.
Sunday, October 21. We had a big day today. We got there early enough to climb a growing south wind all the way down the North River and into Mobjack Bay! We finally made it, for the first time, well out into the bay! Man, did we feel lost. Because of the same good wind, the waves out there were getting to the 2 to 3 foot range which is kind of bumpy for our little craft. Because the bay is slightly deeper and more open, the waves were further apart so the boat could often ride down through the troughs instead of smacking into the face of the next. That was a welcome change. Even so, I was getting a little seasick because of having to attend to various distractions from the process of simply sailing. When I would go below for something, I'd start to get a little woozy. If I went below too often, it would add up faster than it wore off. Fortunately motion sickness pills and wristbands came to the rescue, thanks to Rhonda’s devotion to such details.
After an hour or so of bouncing around in the middle of Mobjack Bay, we decided we were ready to turn downwind and head back. I think it took an hour to glide nearly straight up the North River to home. What a difference that comes over the world when you turn your boat down wind! It requires greater care at the tiller, but it’s so much easier to settle down and concentrate as the waves pass slowly under you from behind. But when we were getting close to that last marker before taking down the sails, something very dramatic happened...
The wind had been building all the time we were sailing back, and we had the main sheeted only about halfway out. Accidental jibes might be more likely, but less serious that way, I thought. The significance of the rising wind and the set of the sails escaped the awareness of the crew, and finally a gust of wind caught the sail and heeled the boat over. Well, the sailboat is designed to head up into the wind when the sails are overpowered, and that’s what it did. Suddenly we found ourselves swept around from a broad run to a close reach. This was really startling. It took maybe three seconds.
Rhonda instinctively sheeted in the main a little more which made sense to me, and but then tried to turn back downwind which took me by surprise. She was trying to get the boat under control. We did our little pirouette again. This did not meet with her approval. She was mad 
and not having fun and wasn’t going to stay out any more, we are going back in right now! Okay then, I started to get the motor going but she didn’t want that either. This kind of baffled me because keeping the bow upwind with the motor running is how we usually raise the sail in the first place. I just thought doing it backwards was the logical thing to do. NO! She was going up there herself and taking the jib sail down RIGHT NOW! Okay then, (somebody needs a little nap
!) I had the main sheeted in and I was supposed to steer the boat. Okay, fine.
Rhonda climbed up to the mast and loosened the jib halyard. I kept watch in case something happened. The wind kept the jib up on the forestay, flapping in the wind. I thought something really bad might happen then, but she just went on up to the bow and started pulling the sail down. The waves were just as vigorous here as anywhere else we had been today and she was getting a pretty good ride on that end of the boat. That was good, something to do battle with. Little did she know that I wasn’t steering at all while she was doing this, the boat was sailing herself. I was poised in the companionway, waiting for her to need rescuing of some sort. I was also wishing I could be up there instead of her; it’s kind of fun bobbing up and down in the big waves. I think that if she had known how really under-control the situation was, she could have calmed down a little bit, but I was sure that if she knew I wasn’t operating the boat at all while she was up there then it would have upset her even more. She’s funny like that.
Anyway, once the jib was secured to the pulpit she sat and looked at the waves for a while. Good, she’s doing something relaxing. Things are going fine. After that the main came down pretty quickly. I had two hands free to roll the main up on the boom and the sails were suddenly stashed away. Without the mainsail the boat turned herself abeam the wind. I was delighted. Once back in the cockpit, Rhonda had blown off enough steam to allow me to start the motor. Okay then, fine. Besides, it turned out to be better to do it after lowering the sails than before. How did she know that?
Now that we have gone over what happened, we feel confident again after our little surprise. We both appreciated how the boat would steer itself under certain conditions. Some of the secrets of sailing are revealing themselves at last. We have sailed in nearly identical conditions before without incident; we just did it right that time and wrong this time. If we had just kept doing it right, we would never have learned a thing.
After that, we had a string of weekends where one or the other of us was feeling under the weather, or we had things going on that we couldn’t get away from, or it was raining. The beautiful weekends of November got away from us. We did get to the boat, from time to time, for some quick minor maintenance and improvement projects. We added most of a deck organizer and sail sliders for the main sail so we could raise the sails from the cockpit. We took home the porta-potty, still unused, to keep it from freezing.
Saturday, December 1, 2001
Thanks to some very warm weather for the season we were able to finish our mainsail and deck modifications, after much work and worry, and could finally pull out of the slip around 3:15 and raise sail about 3:30. The sail slides worked marvelously, the main sail simply flew up the mast. The jib (Genoa this time) was the only sail we could operate from the cockpit, so I nipped down from the mast and yanked it up, too. Beautiful! When the main halyard is replaced we will really have it made!
The wind was very light and we slipped over the glassy water like magic. Other sailboats were out, gliding around or just coming in for the night, some sailing slowly, some under power. We had no destination, and so we wandered all over our end of the North River. We even ran aground while playing with the VHS radio, which is still a new toy to us. I had neglected to watch the depth meter. It was a very low tide with a full moon, and the bottom was not where I expected it to be, so to speak. No problem; after the boat had pivoted around on the keel a little, the breeze in the sails being just about enough to turn us, I cranked up the keel and we sailed off again roughly the way we had come. I was able to lower the keel again in a few seconds and we were well off on another aimless tack. A swing keel can be some trouble to maintain, but it sure is nice to have sometimes.
We only had an hour or two when the sun began to set. We slowly took down our sails for what would probably be the last time until spring. The wind died down to almost nothing, just like our first time there. We talked about it and looked around at the water, the sky, everything. The old motor once again started right up and we headed back. All the way to the marina I looked and listened and smelled for as much of everything as I could; I wanted to remember. We tied up in our slip like old salts, and left the last few chores remaining to work on over winter weekends.
On to 5. Mobjack Bay, 2002
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