Another Step - We can Sail!!

Well, another day in paradise, although by the way some of the people looked as Cheryl this morning, dressed in her shorts and tank top, it was obvious some of the indigents thought this was bad weather and she was crazy to be out in the cold (about 26 C at 8:00 am) dressed like that. "They" say that eventually people become so acclimatized to the warm that 26 C does feel cold. Maybe - but it may take me 10-20 years!
Today was exciting. First of all, the bilge was still nearly dry after we worked on it yesterday. Laugh if you will but different things are important at different times. It's funny but talking to Cheryl today, I mentioned that when I first moved to the acreage, I practically prayed that nothing go wrong with the sump or the pump or the furnace etc etc because who would I call and how would I fix it? After being on the boat for a week (oh yeah, it's an anniversary day), I could manage a string of acreages. Well, some exaggeration but still, the attitude change is tremendous.

So, on to our day. We got our main sail up and our sailpack on. The guy who we got to do it was great. I said to him at the start - we would like this process to be as much about education as it is about getting the sails up and he was so patient and informative, without being condescending, that it was a wonderful experience.



What isn't obvious in the pictures is the fact that the wind today chose not to cooperate. Or maybe we did bring some Fort Macleod wind with us. It was coming across our port front quarter and was not too troublesome until we had to put the mainsail completely up. A couple of times I thought we were going to bring our dock up out of the water (we are secured on the port side).





And of course when it was up, Kevin had to go back to his shop to get a couple of things so it was exciting. We retied our bow line and our forward spring line and managed to live through it though.



Due to the weather and a possible problem with our genoa furling apparatus, we did not get our foresails up but they should be in place by Saturday. And then Monday we sail

(A Day Later!)

Well, the old salts here told us to "be prepared" and "nothing is done until it is done" and sure enough, while we were getting everything ready to put up the foresail and staysail we discovered that the foresail work that was supposed to have been done was not. I spoke to the boss of the shop about it and he told me that it could not be done while it was on the hard (in dry dock for non-enthusiasts) but that Steve, who was/is supposed to be our work coordinator, had not told him we are in the water. This is not the first time this gentleman has been remiss in his duties. I sincerely hope he does not want a glowing recommendation.

Anyway, that is my snit for the day. No trouble in Paradise!! What is means is we go out next week without a foresail/genoa but the nice thing about a cutter rig is that we still have the staysail to use. We are just not as quick in the water and we won't get the supervised practice with everything up. We also definitely have the spinnaker which is the "cool sail!!!"

When we get back, El has promised us he will do the forestay right away so we should still be able to get away from here more or less permanently a couple of days after we are back. Aside from Steve, people here have been very helpful and actually I just think that he has taken on a bit more than he can handle and doesn't know how to handle it.

Stay Tuned