Yo-ho
Yesterday I went sailing on the Bay.
We were invited on Saturday, which is the sort of notice for a weekday outing that seems reasonable only to people in particular circumstances of life. I scrambled to make it acceptable, succeeding mostly by virtue of having recently brokered progress through the power of other-uncompensated overtime. Cat didn't have the same luck, as the cowards treacherously scheduled a departmental meeting against our unannounced expedition. So it was me, a postdoc and three recently-employed persons. (The preceding sentence forced me to abandon the Oxford comma.)
Our boat was a 32-foot Catalina, for those who understand that, which is a set that excludes me. We gathered at noon, and finally set out from the Berkeley marina at two-thirty - it was that sort of day. Our plan was first to tack to Angel Island, then motor around to the Gate and jibe back home; unfortunately, with the slow start, the incoming tide, and the 25-naut eastward winds, that was mostly fouled. Instead, we tacked to Richmond, set aground to ease some suffering; that was about five-thirty. From there, we planned to tack further north to Red Rock Island, but we were becalmed, so instead we somehow decided to motor past Angel Island and then resume the first plan, which was fine except that we had low winds when we came east of Alcatraz, so we spent a long few hours there in the cold, with dark water and distant lights, puttering home on power. I eventually got home and dinner at midnight, and it would have been later except for combinator's generosity in giving me a ride.
The mechanics of sailing are very fun; it's a lot of running about on the boat, balanced with carefully-timed exertions, all required to make any progress at all. If anything, I regretted having so many people around to divide the labor. I came aboard knowing a fair amount about the basics of sailing, and I gained some good practical experience but not appreciably more theory; our skipper mostly ordered us about without explaining why, and maybe that was reasonable for a first voyage.
I spent a lot of time at the helm. Some of this was lifeless: the endless slow circles I cut there in the marina, keeping the M alive while she was prepped for berth, those memories Time can claim for herself, I do not need them. But Lady? Spare for me certain moments, if you will; leave me those minutes where I held my course straight at five nauts in the winds off the Gate, sailing down on Ghirardelli Square and past the searchlights of Alcatraz. Those are not times fit for the gods.
We were invited on Saturday, which is the sort of notice for a weekday outing that seems reasonable only to people in particular circumstances of life. I scrambled to make it acceptable, succeeding mostly by virtue of having recently brokered progress through the power of other-uncompensated overtime. Cat didn't have the same luck, as the cowards treacherously scheduled a departmental meeting against our unannounced expedition. So it was me, a postdoc and three recently-employed persons. (The preceding sentence forced me to abandon the Oxford comma.)
Our boat was a 32-foot Catalina, for those who understand that, which is a set that excludes me. We gathered at noon, and finally set out from the Berkeley marina at two-thirty - it was that sort of day. Our plan was first to tack to Angel Island, then motor around to the Gate and jibe back home; unfortunately, with the slow start, the incoming tide, and the 25-naut eastward winds, that was mostly fouled. Instead, we tacked to Richmond, set aground to ease some suffering; that was about five-thirty. From there, we planned to tack further north to Red Rock Island, but we were becalmed, so instead we somehow decided to motor past Angel Island and then resume the first plan, which was fine except that we had low winds when we came east of Alcatraz, so we spent a long few hours there in the cold, with dark water and distant lights, puttering home on power. I eventually got home and dinner at midnight, and it would have been later except for combinator's generosity in giving me a ride.
The mechanics of sailing are very fun; it's a lot of running about on the boat, balanced with carefully-timed exertions, all required to make any progress at all. If anything, I regretted having so many people around to divide the labor. I came aboard knowing a fair amount about the basics of sailing, and I gained some good practical experience but not appreciably more theory; our skipper mostly ordered us about without explaining why, and maybe that was reasonable for a first voyage.
I spent a lot of time at the helm. Some of this was lifeless: the endless slow circles I cut there in the marina, keeping the M alive while she was prepped for berth, those memories Time can claim for herself, I do not need them. But Lady? Spare for me certain moments, if you will; leave me those minutes where I held my course straight at five nauts in the winds off the Gate, sailing down on Ghirardelli Square and past the searchlights of Alcatraz. Those are not times fit for the gods.