gAzSelin

Monday, January 30, 2012

Solo Voyage

In case you don't know - we have a Capri Sun 14.2 sailboat. It is the same kind of boat we took our lessons in. And yesterday we actually hooked it up and took it to Tempe Town Lake for our Solo Voyage - without instructors.

We got to the lake at about 1:00 - Scott met us there. He had purchased our Tempe Town Lake Permit so he had to come apply it to our boat before we could put it in the water. We got the boat rigged and ready for action.

Our Solo Voyage had two minor glitches. First as we were getting the boat into the water my pinky finger started bleeding. And that thing was a gusher that wouldn't stop. It was dripping all over - crazy because I didn't even feel anything. I had to go to the truck to try to stop the bleeding. I used a beach towel but in the meantime I dripped blood on the seat. Then when I used the towel the blood was oozing through it and seeping onto the seat while I looked for a bandaid. I don't know what was going on but I am happy to say that I did eventually stop the bleeding. Crazy.

The other minor glitch was when we were actually raising the main sail. We could get it up - but not quite all the way. We were 8 or 10 inches from the top of the 20 foot mast. It seemed to be hanging up on something. We hoisted it up and tugged - then we would take it down and try again. We were stumped. But luckily for us there was a Sailing Club member standing around watching newbie sailors make mistakes. He came over and watched us for a while. Made a suggestion or two and then hit on the problem. We had the boom vang attached and it was hindering the full deployment of the main sail. We unhooked the boom vang and voila - the sail was fully extended and we were ready to push off and start our Solo Voyage. We thanked the guy and set sail.

We had the most perfect sailing day ever. The wind was great! It kept blowing the entire time we were there. It wasn't too strong - but gave us lots of practice moving around the lake and making turns. We never had such a good wind at any of our classes. So we were just moving all around and having a great time. Our friend, the Sailing Club member? He used his binoculars and watched us while we took our Solo Voyage out on the lake. He might have gotten a few laughs. But we came back to the dock dry - and that should give us extra points. The reason we don't have any pictures of us out on the lake is I was too chicken to take the camera out with us - just in case we had to exercise our capsize recovery skills. Maybe next time we'll be braver.

We count our first Solo Voyage and a huge success. So if anyone wants to come with us some time and try out some sailing - let us know. We'll try to squeeze you into our schedule.

Saturday, January 28, 2012

100 miles

Yesterday I officially finished my 100 miles.

I feel really good about it.

I turned my form in and will have earned my free limited edition t-shirt to commemorate the fete. Actually now that I've done the math - that t-shirt cost me $54 in park entrance fees, plus gas money to drive all over the valley to get to the various parks, and a fair amount of blisters, sweat, and tears.

I'm not complaining - just saying.