I know, I know. I should tell you about the time I nearly fell off the boat trying to dock it. When I was hanging off the life-rail and my boots were wet and Stan had to drag me bodily onto the pier AND dock the boat at the same time. But I will save that story for another day.
I just needed to scribble in a few words tonight to express how grateful I am that Stan knows how to work this boat thing. I'm feeling a little deflated after this afternoon's run. I just can't seem to retain any of what I have learned about sailing and my stomach fills with the same old butterflies and dread every time he even mentions the word "boat". Today was especially difficult for me. Because operating a boat requires a pure brute strength that I simply do not possess, I find myself feeling utterly useless on board. Lifting the motor out of the water nearly made me pass out from the effort today. And the jib sheet that almost got away from me also almost sucked me over the rails and into the water with its force. I'm also not very "robust", as Stan would say, when it comes to cold weather. In fact, I hate being cold. One would have to ask oneself, given my weak arms and my loathing for all climates under 85 degrees, why I agreed to own a boat in the Pacific Northwest in the first place.
And I would have to say it has something to do with me wanting to prove that I could do this. It would also have something to do with me wanting to learn how to not curl up into a ball of heaving nausea whenever I come into contact with boats, planes, or trains. I really wanted this experience to make me a tough, seasoned sailor. Instead, especially after a day like today when the only bragging rights I could claim were "I didn't fall off the boat", I am feeling like I'll never get it. All that I've read about "being one with your boat" does not apply to me. I flail like a dead fish when given directions. Even my mnemonic devices are useless. There is not one drop of
instinct in me when it comes to sailing. Aside from feeling crappy at not being able to understand half of what's being shouted to me ("Aft"? "Fore"? "Boom's Away"? I thought these were things only cartoon pirates said...) I can't seem to shake loose the overwhelming sense of impending destruction whenever we set foot on that deck. I feel like, at any moment, I could be watching my keys float to the bottom of the ocean, or, worse yet, my whole damned boat. I know some people would say this aspect of sailing, the unpredictability of it all, is what makes it fun. For me, it makes it borderline miserable. It's not like driving a car where pushing down on a pedal makes it go and pushing another pedal makes it stop. Sure, there are subtle adjustments you make in between stop and go, but none of those rules apply on a boat. I mean, when you're in a car, you can control whether or not you will crash into the car in front of you because there is a guarantee from the world of physics that the
road underneath you will stay still no matter what you do to the car. Not so on a boat. Some supertanker comes chugging through the Sound and you have to spend the next ten minutes bobbing up and down on waves
you didn't make. Then there's the wind. One second it's there, and the next it's not. And having to take this all in, having to finesse your sail tension and your steering every ten seconds or so, is exhausting to me. I don't know where I got the idea that sailing was supposed to be leisurely, but it's NOT. It's WORK! It's constant movement and adjustment! It's not leisurely at all! And it's COLD outside to boot!
Sailing is just unlike anything I have ever done in my life. I feel like my life, Stan's life, and the life of our boat insurance policy is at stake every time we take her out. It puts me on edge. It's not like my other interests in life where goof ups are easily corrected. Cooking, knitting, crossword puzzles... these are tame hobbies. If I put in a carrot where a zucchini should have been, or purl instead of knit, or put the wrong word into five down, I can adjust without huge consequences. No one dies when I oversalt the soup . In fact, no one may be the wiser (especially if I use pencil on the crossword puzzle). But, if you tack when you're supposed to
not tack... or if you cut the engine too soon, or not soon enough, you could literally permanently hurt yourself, or your sailing partner, or cause never-before-seen-amounts of property damage. And I am OBSESSED with this idea: that I could be the cause of said death and destruction. It's an enormous amount of responsibility to carry around while doing something "fun". I feel like I have been given license to operate a battering ram without any instructions.
This could easily turn into a rant about how this city slicker has made a terrible, expensive decision in buying a boat (has it already?)... that maybe i ought to just stick to pavement-dependent activities... but I want to put it out there that I've just had a hard day of being all thumbs and two left feet (and weak arms) and it feels awful and I have to confess that there exists a much steeper learning curve than I expected. I'm hoping to look back on this in some time and laugh at what a scared novice I was. I'm hoping to let go of my need to know everything before it happens... I'm sure that once I remember that steering goes backwards and that "into the wind" means... whatever it means... I will actually ENJOY sailing. But, I have to give voice to the part of me that is entirely unconvinced right now. And I have to say thanks to my sailing partner for getting us, once again, out and about and back in again without a hitch.
