I forgot how much I love to sail. Invited myself to crew today on Tink’s boat. There weren’t a lot of boats out- we thought because of it being a holiday- in reality, probably more because of the bad conditions. A guy helped us lead the boat into the slip after our sail, and commented a few times on how brave we were to head out today.

It was windless for most of our way out- then raging tide coming in and choppy waves. Odd, because I’ve never sailed into Sausalito with that kind of roughness. Especially hard on a long sail. We went up the San Rafael bay to the bridge- heading idly for China Camp- but ended up bailing after we passed the bridge, and looped back. All of our predictions on how long it took to came back, though, were wrong. We just couldn’t round the Tiburon point, then we couldn’t get through Raccoon Straits.

It was tough for me to be so BAD at sailing. “Can you lower the jib?” she asks. “Sure.” I say, and then total blank. How does one get the jib down? “Lower it.” She says, kind of distracted. I’m game, maybe it’ll be obvious! This episode results in Tink just going and doing it herself. Same with the mainsail- choppy waves, I’m curled up at the bow not really knowing what happens next. Combination of low grade motion sickness and just going 8 months without sailing and completely forgetting basic things. Sure- I remember useless stuff like where the charts are and how to tie a Turkish knot, on the pier.

To give myself a break though, I had learned it all gradually over a year, and having such a big break means that I forget things like, the green line means the main sail, the red line is the jib, etc. I sat up at the mast for a while and just breathed, when we were passing the Rock Without A Name. It’s quiet up there, and the nausea died down and it was just the the mellow pounding of the boat against waves, in 2-1 rhythm, it seemed.

Now after a bath and a nap I have that sun blown tired feeling. My eyes are sore, lower back aches, but man, it was nice to be out for 8 hours sailing! I think if I close my eyes now, I will still feel like I’m on a boat, with the subtle rocking and sounds.