The Regatta

It's a cloudy 40 degree day in January, it's only wet, not really  raining - the weather is nice today. So we took the boat out sailing for the weekend.

Things were looking good as we headed  towards Orcas Island. The girl was happy. We had some wind and we were sailing. The seas were calm.  There was a blue spot in the sky. I could almost picture a five dollar bill floating into the side of the boat and plastering itself there.

Annabelle assisting with the till

All of a sudden, I hear this ruckus from Brandon, "My Outhaul! My Outhaul!!!". On high alert, I drop what I'm doing in the cabin, which was probably putting crayons into a zip-lock bag with Annabelle. I charged into the cockpit to investigate. In my head I'm thinking "Oh god, we're finally sinking" or "the cheap Chinese diesel heater erupted into flames". 

A little cabin chaos courtesy of Annabelle

I jumped into the cockpit.... only to discover another sailboat - sailing in the same direction as we were! [Gasp!!!!!] For those of you who don't sail, two sailboats going in the same direction are by default: racing. And Brandon's outhaul wasn't properly trimmed. And we were losing the impromptu regatta.  Brandon's face was pale and he was starting to panic. His hands were shaking like an epileptic honey badger and  I knew I had to act quickly or he would lose his man card, in the wind. As his pulse was racing, and his body was going into fleet or flee mode I took the tiller. Brandon was able to adjust his outhaul- pulling in and setting the tension just right-like a musician finely tuning his guitar.... or an engineer finely calculating his vectors.  As we continued the cutthroat non-existent race, Brandon's heart was going about 150 beats a minute. The other boat was ahead for a minute-then we almost got them, then we were ahead. We were yo-yoing like Oprah on a diet, "we're doin' it!" "wait... nope, nope we aren't".  There was sweat on Brandon's brow and just when the intensity of the make believe race was too much, the wind died down and the other boat turned it's motor on.  Brandon roared like a  triumphant Viking in battle shouting, "he yields"- winning "the race" by default!!

Victory is ours

We arrived at Orcas Island just before dusk to find that the dock we planned to stay at was pulled for the season. We poached some rich guy's private mooring buoy and stayed for the night and celebrated Brandon's victorious imaginary race. 

The end. 

Annabelle post celebration and sleeping arrangement for the night