I am sailing
One reason I never cared much for boats is that, when you
think of it, they really don’t differ much from vehicles on the road.
So you say the boat is out on the calm sea? Ever heard of
country roads? But the boat is on the water! Yep, and that engine is so loud,
I’d rather feed my iPod with a 24 hour musical podcast titled, ‘The Holy
Rhythms of the Chainsaw’. A car’s engine purrs like a kitten by comparison. But
Andy, there are hardly any boats out there on the sea! Wrong again, not only
are their plenty of boats are there, but the competition and the traffic jams make
the bottleneck on freeways look like wide open race courses by comparison. A
nice yacht? Sure, on dry land we call that a Mercedes. But there’s the
environment and the fresh sea breeze! Sure there is, but you probably won’t
smell it thanks to the exhaust fumes your little boat is spewing out. That
gives me as many kicks as revving up an engine inside a closed garage and
taking a deep drag from the tailpipe.
I am relatively open minded, but just never understood the appeal of boating.
Here’s the solution: toss away the engine. Do what people have been doing since they’ve discovered water: sailing.
Last Sunday, we were invited to sail around Oyster Bay by David, an old Yorkshire native and skipper of the Ragtime, a small yacht anchored a few hundred yards from the Oyster Bay coast. Yes, I know. It’s a yacht. Status symbol, supposedly. But without the engine, it emits as many fumes as a bicycle.
First things first: board the boat without falling in. Next, lift the kids into the boat without them falling in. David is an old hand at operating this boat as he has for the last fifteen years. I hoist the sails, starting with the main, pulling that rope until there are blisters on my hand. Once your work is done, you watch somebody else do the work…that would be the wind, in this case. It is a cool and soporific glide over the waves under a clear blue Tanzanian sky, and the boys fall asleep quickly, their boundless energy stymied by the rhythmic crash of the waves against the steel of the hull.
I steer the boat to ensure the wind hits the right angle of the sails, and we speed up. Before we know it, Snake Island is beckoning on the horizon. David points out another site to the left, an ugly looking factory looming in the distance. Supposedly, this surreal silhouette of a complex (now a cement factory) was the inspiration for Roald Dahl’s ‘Wee Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory’, and it’s easy to see how people can make the connection. Dahl, of course, spent some of his formidable years living in Tanzania right before the war ordered him back home and into the cockpit of a Spitfire.
Axl eventually wakes up and takes a turn steering while David and I adjust the sails as we distance ourselves further from the bay and head toward the open sea. As soon as the depth has reached twenty meters we decide that this is as far as we will go. Time to drop anchor, in this case steer so the sail won’t catch the wind. There’s a final snap of the sail, and then merely the waves and the sun. Picture book, I’d say.
David gives Axl some minor chores to handle, like radioing in our position and our imminent arrival back to shore. Funny how kids take interest in certain chores once they are actively involved. What a concept.
I will not proclaim that this is now my latest hobby… that will still require an actual boat. But if there’s anybody out there looking for an extra hand to scrub the deck, then count me in.
I am relatively open minded, but just never understood the appeal of boating.
Here’s the solution: toss away the engine. Do what people have been doing since they’ve discovered water: sailing.
Last Sunday, we were invited to sail around Oyster Bay by David, an old Yorkshire native and skipper of the Ragtime, a small yacht anchored a few hundred yards from the Oyster Bay coast. Yes, I know. It’s a yacht. Status symbol, supposedly. But without the engine, it emits as many fumes as a bicycle.
First things first: board the boat without falling in. Next, lift the kids into the boat without them falling in. David is an old hand at operating this boat as he has for the last fifteen years. I hoist the sails, starting with the main, pulling that rope until there are blisters on my hand. Once your work is done, you watch somebody else do the work…that would be the wind, in this case. It is a cool and soporific glide over the waves under a clear blue Tanzanian sky, and the boys fall asleep quickly, their boundless energy stymied by the rhythmic crash of the waves against the steel of the hull.
I steer the boat to ensure the wind hits the right angle of the sails, and we speed up. Before we know it, Snake Island is beckoning on the horizon. David points out another site to the left, an ugly looking factory looming in the distance. Supposedly, this surreal silhouette of a complex (now a cement factory) was the inspiration for Roald Dahl’s ‘Wee Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory’, and it’s easy to see how people can make the connection. Dahl, of course, spent some of his formidable years living in Tanzania right before the war ordered him back home and into the cockpit of a Spitfire.
Axl eventually wakes up and takes a turn steering while David and I adjust the sails as we distance ourselves further from the bay and head toward the open sea. As soon as the depth has reached twenty meters we decide that this is as far as we will go. Time to drop anchor, in this case steer so the sail won’t catch the wind. There’s a final snap of the sail, and then merely the waves and the sun. Picture book, I’d say.
David gives Axl some minor chores to handle, like radioing in our position and our imminent arrival back to shore. Funny how kids take interest in certain chores once they are actively involved. What a concept.
I will not proclaim that this is now my latest hobby… that will still require an actual boat. But if there’s anybody out there looking for an extra hand to scrub the deck, then count me in.
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