I wonder if my father said the same thing when he was asked to go sail a sailboat with Nicole, and Mrs. Wilkins and me in the bay in Galveston. That is the one instance of my father sailing that I remember in my life. It did not go well. It was fun for a moment, but we came about, the boom swung from port to starboard, and my father's forehead made contact hard enough to draw blood. The trip back to the Wilkins' bay house included lots of blood and towels pressed to his head. Fiasco sail to say the least.
Today's boating experience was close to but not quite as bad as that. And this seems apropos considering 9/3 is my father's birthday.
A few weeks ago, we took the boat into one of the little lakes around here and got it set up and put into the water and tried her out to see if she was lake worthy. She was.
Today we tried Lake Houston. Much larger. Much more to deal with. Overall we did well. Price deemed it Operation Kickass (if it went well) . . . Operation Dumbass (if it didn't).
We landed somewhere in the middle.
Alone I would have done quite fine I think. Throw in two little boys and you have six legs instead of two, six arms instead of two, three butts instead of one. I told the boys the story of my father before we set off and told them to watch the boom. But Charlie is not the best helmsman, and way out in the middle of the lake when Dad was executing "coming about" Charlie decided to "jib" without telling anyone.
The boom swung. Dad saw it coming and caught it just in time to soften the blow to the head. I tumbled backward into the water.
I saved my glasses, my hat, and my dignity by immediately grabbing the boat before the boys kept sailing by without me.
After I got back in Price said, "You seem awfully calm for almost dying." A statement I thought was a tad overblown. He later told his mom that it was the most terrifying experience of his life.
Charlie never did get better with the helm, but it was fun nonetheless, and probably it was as memorable to them as my sailing with my father and the Wilkins was to me. Already we are looking forward to the next voyage. We are thinking maybe Galveston Bay!
