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Tacking! "A ship in a harbor is safe, but it
is useless."
We awoke refreshed, but feeling half-starved. Out of provisions, craving food, we packed and hit the road in search of sustenance. Stately red maple lined the thoroughfare like a giant arbour; their branches arched over the roadway, leaves ablaze in a canopy of fiery crimson. The picturesque route, a feast to the senses, helped us to forget - at least momentarily - about our hunger. I let out a little half-chuckle as we passed through the town of Cornucopia - hunger gnawing my belly. Not a single place was open. Talk about false advertising. Farther along, following the shore of Lake Superior, Apostle Islands in the distance, a sign caused me to do a double take. "Hey! Get a load of that," I said, motioning in the sign's direction. In bold letters, it proclaimed: Lake Superior. "Just in case you were wondering," Sharon laughed. In Bayfield, we found an open store and went crazy buying heaps of bananas, peaches, yogourt, and Grape-nut cereal. Well provisioned, we headed for the beach, on the lookout for the most scenic breakfast spot. A huge red oak, surrounded by sculpted boulders and driftwood, looked the perfect spot. Secluded, we settled in, enjoying the parade of passing boats, sails flapping in the forceful wind. It looked as if most sailors were on the losing end of a gangplank to nowhere. In a futile attempt to soften the rock-hard Grape-nuts, I soaked them in yogourt (nothing like breaking a tooth on one's breakfast cereal). A handsome fellow on a single speed rode up. "Hi," he said. Vince introduced himself, then asked the three usual questions: "Where are you from? Where are you going? How many miles a day do you do?" (I had heard the questions so many times I was thinking of having a T-shirt printed and just point to the answers when people asked.) "I'd like to cycle in Ireland," Vince said. "After I sail there." Now that was something we hadn't heard before! "Do you sail?" came Sharon's immediate question. Indeed he did! Vince was a member of a Saint Paul crew that raced sailboats. And, he informed us, they planned on going out that morning. "Would you like to come along?" he invited. "Wow! Sounds great!" we chorused. He pointed across the water to a harbour. "We're the one with the tallest mast. Come on over if you'd like to go." Like to go?! Vince pedalled off, and we hurriedly crunched our Grape-nuts (who cared if one lost a filling when racing sailboats awaited?). We skipped over to the harbour like two kids promised a visit to a candy store. "Hi!" Vince greeted us. "I'm glad you decided to come. Just to let you know: I'll have to get the official approval from the captain when he gets here - wouldn't want to upset protocol." Sharon and I, two landlubbers from landlocked Alberta, waited in front of the tall-masted boat. I felt like a kid before a fully decked tree Christmas morning. We had never been on a sailboat in our lives, let alone a 42-foot schooner with a 60-foot main mast. To our untrained eyes the thing looked immense! We stood, nervously shifting from foot to foot, waiting for Chet - the boat's owner - to arrive. Another crew member, Jeff, arrived with Chet. Then, quickly on their heels, Mike - the fourth and final crew member - appeared. Vince hustled over to Chet and, waving in our direction, popped the question. "Yep," we overheard Chet say. We were relieved to receive the informal formal okay. Chet ambled over and introduced himself with a hearty handshake. "Looks like we could use some extra ballast today," he said, the robust wind whipping his curly grey locks. Leanne, Vince's girlfriend, arrived - she had been invited along as ballast, as well. Leanne was from Omaha. When I kidded her that she must work for Mutual of Omaha then, she said, "No, I work for 3M in Mexico. In a week," she added, visibly excited, "I'm off to work in South Africa for six months." Whew. It sounded a long way from where we were at present. One final requirement before we got underway: the marine weather forecast. The radio broadcast a gale warning with 45 knot winds. A bit disconcerting for one's first ride, I thought. Wouldn't want it to be my first and last. Sharon must have been having the same concerns. "Wh - What do you do if it's too windy?" she stammered. "Put out more sail," Jeff replied tartly. I noticed boats that had been out during breakfast had returned to the safety of harbour and were being securely moored. A lone charter sailboat, on its way out, puttered past. But then, still within the protection of the harbour, it thought better of the gusty action just beyond, and turned around. No gust, no glory, I thought. A tug-like craft passed us, loaded to the gills with wetsuit clad divers. A heavyset fellow sat propped on the prow, scowling. Missing only his trident, the grey-whiskered chap struck an uncanny resemblance to Neptune himself. We climbed aboard the schooner. Even getting out of the berth was no easy feat. The boat was so large there was no clearance to swing her around; after a series of short back and forth maneuvers we were free. We motored to open water, choppy waves hitting us on all sides. Mike, an owner of two sailboats, unfurled the main sail. The wind caught it in a huge snort. The boat jumped sideways like a skittish colt and suddenly we were skimming across the whitecapped waves. Whee! Jeff manned the tiller; Vince operated computers; Chet and Mike worked sails - Chet on mainsail, Mike on jib. Dacron made up the mainsheet's construction with Kevlar stitched into the stress areas. The smaller jib consisted entirely of Kevlar. Chet told us the jib alone cost over five grand and "doesn't last very long when used for racing." It was far too windy to even think about putting out the billowy spinnaker. Drats! I was beginning to like this speed. Zipping across the waves, I yelled to the tillerman, "We could pull a water skier!" "We're in Lake Ontario," Jeff shouted, kidding me about how far we'd gone. "There's Toronto over there." Vince watched computer displays, reading everything from wind speed and direction to the lake's depth. One monitor even showed the lake's bottom. I was relieved. I didn't notice any sailboats down there! Leanne, Sharon, and I, locked our arms around the boat's rear railing, near Tillerman Jeff. With the tenacity of octopi, we clung for dear life. Our job (besides ballast), we were told, was twofold. "One: Don't fall off. Two: Stay out of the way." Accomplishing both at the same time proved not as easy as one might first think. I learned the hard way there wasn't a whole lot of excess room on a racing sailboat. Whenever Jeff reefed the tiller, it solidly smacked my thigh. I would have a few bruises as mementos to my first sailboat ride. Clipping across waves was exciting. But tacking was exhilarating! Our high and dry perch suddenly became the side sweeping the water's surface. The mainsail swung around. Leanne, Sharon, and I, like three about-to-be-drowned rats, scurried to the opposite side (keeping the racing sailor's time honored rhyme in mind: Keep low and never let go!). The one time Sharon lost her grip, she nearly toppled overboard. No one wore life jackets. "If you fall in," Jeff said, only half kidding, "the water is so cold it'll kill you before the coast guard can pick you up." With that comforting thought in mind, my fingers practically embedded themselves into the metal railing. After all, if I fell in, they couldn't exactly just swing around and pick me up. The most they could do was radio the coast guard. I could hear it now: "The last we saw Neil, he was wearing a neon-green ball cap, bobbing at 47-degrees North and 90-degrees West." An occasional rogue wave sent up a smashing spray, soaking our faces. "Yahoo! Refreshing!" I yelled. The sun even made an appearance to see what all the commotion was about. But, even with Old Sol, racing across the waves proved to be chilly business. Luckily, before we set out, Sharon persuaded me to don long pants. Leanne, not so lucky, clad only in a T-shirt and cutoffs, shivered non-stop, her slender legs blue and covered in goosebumps.
Three hours later, we were safely back in harbour. (We heard on the radio later that due to the high winds the coast guard had had their busiest 36 hours in their history.) "That's as good as it gets!" Chet announced with a meaty grin as we berthed. "That's the most wind I've ever been out in." "Me, too," I replied. |
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