Lake Anna

by John  Corrected by Rhonda

  After our great adventures learning the basics of sailing, we took our boat home for some tweaking and fixing up of things after having learned about them while actually on the water.  Up to now we only had ideas about the interior, and that’s where we had concentrated our efforts over the winter.  A new table and some curtains, paint, wiring, and a dozen other less obvious things made the cabin really cozy, at least while sitting on the trailer.  Some time with the boat on the water gave us a chance to take a hard look at the outside hardware with a better sense of what we were looking at. We oiled the winches and changed a rusty turnbuckle and made a few other minor changes.

  We also had some time to decide where to go next as we waited for the end of winter to blow itself out.  I am eager to get out on the wide-open spaces of the Chesapeake Bay, to navigate bravely using my newfound knowledge and skill. Sail bravely far from everything but the fickle mercies of nature. Challenge the wind and the waves! Yar!   Rhonda, on the other hand, wants to be close enough to land to be able swim to safety,  just in case.  I was willing to compromise, (knowing that I get further taking small steps with my darling  ball-and-chain than I ever did alone, paralyzed with fear in the face of what I really want to do.)

  Lake Anna is really a colossal cooling pond for a nuclear power plant, I told myself as we set out.  First we went on the freeway, then on narrow and winding roads twisting through the Virginia countryside with Whisper behind, following patiently along.  It was very beautiful and actually kind of fun after the freeway.  We arrived at our selected marina late on the morning of Saturday, May 5, 2001.  We could have arrived earlier, but we had waited until that morning to start getting ready. This meant we arrived after a morning spent loading up the boat and overpacking the car with stuff we never used and driving in time to set up the mast, rudder and outboard motor in the parking lot in 85º weather under the noon-day sun.

  It took us a couple of hour’s work to set everything up,  we still didn’t quite have the hang of it. We were red faced, sweating profusely, but still moving along just before we were ready to launch. We walked down to stand knee deep in the cool water and get a good, long look at the ramp before backing in. Unfortunately, just before we made it to the water, Rhonda’s feet went roller-skating out from under her on the dusty gravel slope and she managed somehow to land on one knee before rolling over on her butt. Wah!! Ouch! Bad news! Our cooling-off visit to the water was cut kind of short as we headed back up to the marina store, still red faced and sweaty, for some first aid.

  Her knee looked pretty ugly (raw, bleeding and packed full of gravel) and I was thinking we might not make it into the water that day. We couldn’t tell if we needed to go to a hospital, or just put a Band-Aid on it. After dousing the wound with peroxide, Rhonda decided to compromise and do both. First we would launch the boat, then go sailing, and then we would find a doctor.  This kind of surprised me, considering how fussy she can be about little things like lint, dust, wrinkles, bugs and rodents.  I asked her if she was sure, but I only asked her once.  It was going to be a major mess either way. She wanted to sail, OK, let's go.  With our mast up the only things we could reasonably do was launch it or take it all back down and park it somewhere.  The quickest place to stow the boat was in the water.  Once there, I couldn’t argue much against going ahead and sail around a little before heading the 40 miles back to the nearest outpatient center.

  It was a tough decision.  I’m glad she made it and not me.

  An hour after the accident, we were floating safely away from shore and discovering a whole new collection of things that we had forgotten from being too hurried, hot and tired.  Fortunately, the wind was not blowing much and putting the main sheet on after hoisting the main sail up, went off without any disasters.  Once the sails were ready, a gentle breeze carried us off. We  remembered to lower the keel after the first half-hour, and were able to sail upwind after that.  The next two hours were quite pleasant.

  After sailing and renting the slip for a month, we docked and went straight to the doctor, stopping only for a cheeseburger. A really, really good cheeseburger.

  The next weekend was better.  My week at work had been a real killer, (they can sense weakness you know).  I was still feeling a little sick from overheating and bruising from the previous weekend, and Rhonda’s knee was stiff, with a big Band-aid, and she was still tired and bruised as well, but this time all we had to do was show up and sail.  What a difference!

  Saturday was a cloudy day, threatening a little rain now and then, but there was wind.  We went to the largest part of the lake and did a little tacking and jibing and we managed some kind of pirouettes that I’m sure must have looked lovely from a distance.  We ran aground and got ourselves off fairly easily, glad to have gotten that over with.  Then, we had some lunch while tacking between islands and afterwards I drove solo as Rhonda took a nap below. Fantastic.

  We finally headed more or less toward the slip and debated back and forth for a while whether to go in or stay out.  We decided to go on in after four or five hours of fun,  packed up, and drove off at an easy pace. We definitely had a perfect little voyage and as we drove home the rain that had threatened all day - finally came down in buckets.

  Our third weekend was to include no sailing, it was cool and rainy and we had things to catch up on.  Still they were boat things.  Saturday we found a place on Mobjack Bay to keep the boat and Sunday we went back to Lake Anna and spent some quiet time fixing the boat up a little more.  The depth finder now works.  The anchor mount is where it will be useful, out of the reach of sails, and anchoring should be more practical.  Anchoring is something we intend to try some day since we had such a peaceful time floating  at the pier.

 Every mile we sail gives us ideas about things we can do to make it all work better. So every hour we have available to work on it holes get filled, bumps get filed, parts get measured and moved around, and lots of daydreams get dreamed.