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Charity sail
2006-09-25

Looks like an old on-line friend may be popping back in my life. That would be a wonderful thing if life was better for her. She deserves better. Staying with somebody who doesn't love you is always a bad situation. And life goes on.
I finally took the people who won me (well me and the boat) at the charity auction out for their sail on Saturday. Of course the forecast was for rain and high winds and we got some of both. They didn't want to cance though so out we went.
I wasn't sure what to expect I guess. I knew it was a family, that was all. I was expecting the parents to be older and the kids to be younger, what I got was a late 50's couple with childeren all in their early to mid-20s. The youngest daughter goes to good old State U. I'm not sure what she was expecting, but she showed up in a VERY short jean skirt. Interesting, but not exactly appropriate for the situation if you knwo what I mean. At least she wasn't wearing heels...
It wasn't too bad on the way out. It was actually fairly warm and fairly dry. I talked skirt girl into driving. She looked like she was freezing and at the very least it stopped the figeting necessary to keep her skirt from ending up around her ears. Like I said it was breezy, but she did a decent job and had fun... You could tell she was the wild child of the family.
The breeze kept picking and we ducked behind the islands to get flat water. I played tour director, answered questions, told funny stories and made sure the boat stayed pointed in the right direction.
Oldest daughter was convinced to drive second. Sh was dressed for the day, long pants, socks and a big down vest. She still looked cold. She had lots of freckles and was cute as a button, but as a driver, well, not so good. We did get a good view of the bay as she snake waked her way over to Bristol.
The way back was going to be hard on the nose and th ewind was building and building. We also had a whole fleet of racers to contend with and stay out of the way of. I had to take over driving. The wind built to mid-20s range gusting 30. The boat heel got going pretty good and I had to pinch to keep things flat. Of course the leach line picks that time to let go, so we got the thumpa, thumpa thumpa of a flapping jib to add to things. Sweet...
We ducked two boats, one of which we missed by a couple of feet, cleared another by about half a length and finally had to tack to avoid a boat on starboard. There were lots of very big eyes from the guests. At one point the father says, you really like this don't you. I guess I must have been smiling dispite the conditions. Oh and it starteds to rain. Wonderful...
I offered raingear, we have several sets, but everyone refused. I offered for folks to go below, but no to that too. We finally got behind Sandy point cracked off a bunch and got into flatter water. I let the father drive. He said he had sailed before. You could have fooled me. He was worse than daughter #2. The son said he couldn't drive he had a sore shoulder. Hello? I live with two sore shoulders. It's not like I asked him to drive. I think he was afraid his sisters would show him up...
We got back off the bouy to the channel and I didn't dally, we started up the engine and dropped sail. I was concerned about the landing. The wind was still honking and you don't want to look like a turkey in front of guests. I needn't have worried, it was probably our best landing of the year. Just perfect.
We got the boat tied up and they went below. M.E got the oven fired up and Ken went to work cooking brunch which was part of the package. I got the TV fired up so they could all watch golf and then got to work squaring the boat away. Skirt girl ran to the car and put on jeans. She had jeans??? They drank champagne, ate and ate and ate. I performed serving duties, refilled glasses and cleaned up. I think they enjoyed that part best of all.
On the way out they all thanked me, I got a kiss from both girls (not the mom, she had a cold) and everybody said they had a wonderful time. In return I get a $300 charitable write off for going sailing. I can handle that.
Happy Monday.
Ron

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