How People Move (or, How I Spent My Summer Vacation): Part 2, Boat

I learned to sail when I was 12 or 13. I am not an expert. At all. I use the boat less as a means to get from point A to point B and more as a way to go fast.

And when I say I learned, please don't misunderstand the method. Most people I know who sail took very expensive lessons at very expensive (I imagine) yacht clubs with guys (I imagine again) named Chad and Landon who are dressed (and coiffed) like the cast of Saved by the Bell when they all worked at Malibu Sands Beach Club, and have hyphenated surnames. I've obviously spent a lot of time considering the sailing lessons of others.

I learned to sail by getting in this boat (which is ancient) and straining to hear by Dad and grandfather screaming from shore for me to "Come about! Come about! Pull on the rope! The other rope! The other, other rope! Go left! Not your left, my left!" and so on.

I've been spending the past three weeks or so (save for my trip to Hamilton) with my grandmother at her cottage. I am the oldest of her grandchildren but we're all really at the age where we have to work through most of the summer, so I think she misses the noise and the company. It's a pity, too, because it's beautiful here, even on freezing cold days such as this one. The result of her relative loneliness is that any time there is a glint of sunlight, it magically becomes "great swimming weather" (my mother and uncles recall a time when this meant all weather save for lightning storms) and any time there is any breath of wind it's "wonderful sailing weather."

The first time she told me this, (which I automatically translate to its true meaning: please go sailing now) it was actually TERRIBLE weather for sailing, unless of course, ones' boat had a motor. I actually tried using the rudder as a propeller (those of you who sail will understand the futility of this measure), lest I get stuck in the middle of the lake.

The next "great sailing weather" day proved more fruitful and was generally a success, in that I went fast, did not fall out of the boat (this has happened to me more times than I care to admit), and managed to steer clear of the lake's numerous booby traps, which include a reef, an old log sticking up out of the water (called, in my family, the dead head), numerous sand bars and cross-breezes, and I learned recently, an old logging crib.

Not bad for someone who learned by straining for poor directions muffled by the wind.