Helms alee! I am back in sailing class this spring. After a 4 month break due to, well, winter, I am back in the cockpit again. This time I have raised the stakes a little. Instead of dinghy sailing, which I love, I am taking a try with keelboats. I negotiated my way into the Keelboat Novice class, which I do not have the proper ratings to be eligible for. We meet for 6 weeks on Mondays, from 6pm-10pm or later depending on how far out we get. This photo is of a Catalina 25, which is one of the boats that I am learning on.
We have 8 people in the class, and we divide into two groups on two different boats. So far we spent one week getting oriented to the boats and practicing docking under motor, and the next week putting sails up and practicing reefing. We took turns sailing on Lake Washington for a few hours. Then it got dark and I got cold and started making mistakes and getting disoriented. Then it was time to go in.
My group consists of 3 guys and a male instructor. Jason is from Texas. I knew he was from Texas before he told me because he always offered to carry things for me and was giving me the right of way through doors. Bryce is from Seattle. He wears sporty hiking pants, a soft shell jacket and a beard. Peter is a kid I knew from my novice dinghy class last spring that I sailed the double handed boats with since we seemed to be figuring it out at the same rate. My instructor has been either Matt or Kregg, guys I know already from sailing club parties and other classes. All of them are nice and have been fine to learn with so far.We have a giant textbook called "The Annapolis Guide to Seamanship." While it's difficult for me to learn sailing from a book, it's still good to get introduced to concepts and terminology.
I'm not sure where this class will take me. If I get a keelboat novice rating, I can take the keelboats out in Lake Washington and Lake Union. I bet it takes more than being in the class to get that rating though, so we'll see how it goes. The thought of being in charge of a boat that big and taking people out who can't help me know what to do, is terrifying. We'll see. Maybe after all 6 weeks I will feel more confident, especially on summer days with no storms brewing.
I'm working late. I'm always working late these days. A lot of the time I am here alone. South Lake Union, in addition to having an attitude problem, is also very quiet at night. No one lives around here, so it feels rather like a ghost town after 7pm.
One evening last week, on a particularly dark evening, I had company. It was around 10pm, and the XXX video store across the street was not even getting much traffic. Out of my peripheral vision though, I kept seeing movement on the other side of the street. Fast moving shapes, going out of my view before I could get a good look. I sat up and stared out until I saw what was going on. There were two guys, in white t-shirts and skinny jeans, taking turns skateboarding. They would walk about 75 yards up the street. No cars were parked in the parking lane, which allowed them to take off sprinting as fast as they could, skateboard in hand, in the street. They would drop their boards onto the road, jump onto them with one foot and continue to build speed with long pushes using their other foot. Taking advantage of the smooth asphalt, they would gather tremendous speed and hop up the curb onto the sidewalk. At the end of the sidewalk, they had discovered a little spot where the pavement was sloped up to meet a high curb, which made a slight ramp. Each of them would go shooting off the ramp and catch about 4' of air under their boards and land with a crash into the cross street.
A third friend, which I could only see at first because of the little light on his video camera, was taking footage of his buddies as they jumped, from a low angle that probably made them look higher. One after the other, they repeated this for almost an hour. I had a hard time focusing on my work. Each time they landed in the street and fell to a stop, I cringed and readied myself to call 911 when I saw white bones reflecting in the light of the camera. It was incredible. I think these are the same dudes that I have seen eating lunch outside of an old RV in a nearby parking lot, which they presumably live in. They also have been seen riding little BMX bikes around in a pack.
After they wore themselves out, they sat on a wheelstop next to their ramp and had a smoke. It was all I could do to not run out, congratulate them on living epic lives and ask for the YouTube address so I could see their videos. I didn't want to ruin their moment though, so I stayed inside and adjusted some hatch patterns. I hope they come back again soon.
