Just had a great weekend trip to Anacortes. Susan Johnson graciously hosted us in her family's cabin, us being myself, Emily, Sam, Marc, Jen, Kaitlin and Jan. Great group of people & beautiful location!
The adrenaline highlight of the trip was surely Sam's and my sailboat adventure - the two of us were sailing a bit off the coast in one of those ultralight racing boats. The wind picked up and we hit some serious waves, so we decided to turn around - only to fail to let out the mainsail enough as it swung across the boat mid-jibe, so that it took the full brunt of the wind while parallel to the boat rather than perpendicular. Simultaneously a large swell came in (parallel as well) and the boat "went turtle," mast-down.
The water is frigid in Puget Sound, especially in the deeper straits, and it was a shock going in. I could feel myself starting to hyperventilate and move towards shock after only a few minutes: we were in the water no longer than that, thank God. Sam and I kept our composure and quickly started to pull on the centerboard and side of the boat - so successfully that as we rolled it upright it kept going and flipped again, basically right on top of us. Dodged that, tried again, got the boat back upright. We climbed back in shivering (and thankfully already pointing towards shore!) and went "full gas" back to the waiting hottub!
Needless to say, we were both very grateful to be OK afterwards. You feel totally calm while things like that are going on, and only afterwards when the adrenaline wears off do you start to get scared. We were just laughing for the entire trip back in to shore, feeling vigorous, triumphant and very "alive" (comes across as a cliche).
The rest of the weekend was great too. Prime fire lounging, midnight skinny dipping and repeated hottubbing with Jan and Marc, followed by coffee, muffins and a beach walk with Emily the next morning.
Thanks for the fun weekend all - and especially thanks Sam for your part in getting us to shore!
-Dave
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