Six Weeks

They say that the flu lasts for 6 weeks. I thought I had a cold, but now it looks like I have the flu. Not a bad case, just bad enough to be distracting.

I went sailing under the second full moon of the year with the Admiral, Glacier Girl, Radiation Man, and a couple (read guy and gal in love) that GG brought along.

GG started throwing up even before we walked down to the dock. She insisted that we all go sailing anyway. She did not want to dampen the evening and create a situation where her friends did not enjoy themselves.

As 'Captain', I suppose it was my responsibility to do the right thing, but I didn't know what that was. So my experience offshore kicked in. Sailing sometimes involves bile. A good sailor knows how to deal with it. There is no such thing as someone who doesn't get seasick. Just people who have yet to discover the particular conditions with their name on them that makes them turn green and hope to die.

One way to deal with it is to grab your crew mate by the ankles and prevent them from sliding overboard as the bile is directed overboard - the windward stern quarter is a good launching point as the leeward rail involves a drowning risk. I've been both the holdee and the holder. The midnight watch motoring up the coast looms large in my memory. One hand for the helm, the other for the crew mates ankles. Don't expect thanks, seeing your crew mate upright in the morning is thanks enough. If memory goes overboard, that seems to help the recovery.

Another way is the bucket. Tie a dock line to the bucket, make the crewmember as comfortable as possible in a berth below, and bring up the bucket for a quick saltwater rinse often. A sleeping bag thrown over the stricken crew, and shifting them from berth to berth as you tack . . . well, you should be so lucky to have a crewmate do that for you someday.

Funny thing though. GG recovered the next day, I've been sick ever since.

Two weeks down, Four more to go.

I'll be heading out the gate about then, I'm hoping my example will not go unnoticed should I meet the particular conditions with my name on them.

Forgive Me

In my last post I said that "I'll write more when I have time".

Well, this isn't that time.

But I do feel compelled to write something, and share the mixed feelings I've had lately. As 2008 drew to a close, several sailing bloggers were sharing their feelings about the times they'd gone sailing in 2008.

100 seems to be a magical number, 36 seems to be a reasonable number.

99 bottles seems to be a great way to get Tilly back on the water (I prefer reading about his sailing to reading about iceboats and snowboats)

0 between Christmas and New Years, well that just wasn't cool at all. I fumed and fussed and tried hard not to let it get to me. I didn't want to be counting the sailing days of the year, much less the number of blog postings.

And the sailing experiences themselves? In December, they were very interesting. They were very cold, and dark. Nature Girl and I took out a J24 and double handed three times on December evenings. There was an encounter with the Larkspur ferry that nudged me into reading Chapman from cover to cover.

There were other experiences that I can't recall (which bothered me so much I started keeping a log).

There were times that made me appreciate the magic of sailing in the moonlight.

When January came, and the idea of sailing, if not in the Three Bridge Fiasco, then at least among the Fiasco Fleet caught my imagination. Preparing for it was FUN, interacting with other Sailing Bloggers was a kick. Having the weather consist of dry, warm, sunny days with Northeast, North and Northwest winds - WOW. In winter, in January, in Northern California. Then to experience all the other wind directions, without the Fog and Rain and Chop. For the Fiasco to have an East Wind, then a West Wind. Did I mention the lack of Fog and Rain and Chop? . . . WOW.

The cold, dark evenings of December were lost in the joy of those January sailing experiences.

The Full Moon on January 10th, the biggest Moon in twenty years, "Full Moon Fever" became an addiction I'm not sure I'll recover from. The chance encounter with a professional photographer and the absolutely spectacular experience of him on the foredeck, me behind wheel, setting up shot after shot of a very spectacular bridge bathed in a golden glow with a quarter moon? When the digital versions of those photos become available, there WILL be a post about that. Meanwhile, google 'McNair Evans', and be amazed.

So posting on the Blog has temporarily taken a back seat to sailing. The 2009 counter is up to an amazing 16 sails, and it's only February 16th. The last sail was on the February Full Moon, with a couple of old friends and three new ones.

Am I really counting? - well, sort of. I needed to develop a method to keep track of it all. And to keep track of all the new friends I'm making.

I can't possibly post about every experience, but with my 'log' (a spreadsheet that records the sails), I'm building up a non-volatile memory: a set of GPS tracks, as well as a 'crew list' that won't rely on just my brain. I'm working out a way to organize all this so building on these experiences will be easier. Easy enough perhaps that I can post more.

My grandfather's (B)log / Journal is waiting. I'm looking forward to building a Google Earth track of his trip, to charting his course using the Bluewater Electronic Charts, with as much detail as I can gather from his journal, then transfer them to Google Earth.

I'm probably going to move away from the triple post idea, and just post. So I'll probably start posting his journal entries with and without my comments. And I'll just post my own experiences as I find time to, without my grandfathers entries.

So take the 'Times I've Sailed in 2009" picture in the spirit I'm using it. Not so much as a counter, but as a reminder. Sailing comes first, with the beauty and friendship that is it's foundation. Posting will come along as I find the time to do it.

Forgive the unpredictable nature of this blogger. Use the Google reader, follow or subscribe to this blog and you won't miss anything - there is a lot of good stuff ahead.

A quick Blog before I go . . .

A quick Blog before I go sailing . . . again.

I'll write more when I have time. The Three Bridge Fiasco Blogger Division worked out well. As a shadow (charter) boat, I was prevented from actually entering the race, but no stranger to large fleets of racing boats, I had no trouble darting in and out and through the fleet to provide a platform for Zen to take some shots.

Of course the super blogger EVK4 was our favorite target of opportunity.

And we caught Lady Bug's foredeck crew doing the dance.

Zen sums up the start nicely in 'A day at the races . . . 3BF 09'.

I think one of the coolest things about the TBF is that the fleet is HUGE and every imaginable boat type is there.

After what seemed like an hour of non stop photography, with Zen at the camera, and myself standing at the helm constantly scanning the crowd to find ways to intertwine our course with the 320+ boats that we trying very hard to go where they needed to go in light wind, Zen very graciously agreed to switch cameras (his for mine), so that I could leave the day with a full memory card of . . . memories.

There will be more later, this is just a taste.

We got some very nice shots of the quiet spinnaker action near the south tower of the Golden Gate in the light air.

P.S. - Tilly, it was shirt sleeve weather :) The Pacific Ocean starts just through that big bridge. Because the fleet consisted of double hand and single hand sailors, everyone was dressed for the worst. Later on, the air was thick with layers being tossed aside, and bare arms greeting the sun.