Today I took my nephew out on the boat to teach him the ropes about sailing. My first concern was whether there was going to be good enough wind for the day. The next thing I was worried about was whether we see anything good out on the ocean. There are plenty of days that I go out and I don’t see anything interesting or there isn’t any good wind and I end up just motoring around for a few hours. My nephew has been out on a boat before and has been on Cuajota before but this would be the first time he has ever been sailing. Today did not disappoint! We saw everything from porpoise to pirate ships and everything in between. We got a lot of good wind as well and ended up sailing quite a bit. The day started out great, as we are headed out of the harbor we see Vango which is a 180 foot power boat with a helicopter on the back. I’ve seen the boat in Harbor a few times but never actually on the water. That was quite an amazing site.
Once we got out of the harbor we went out past the first buoy and looked up and saw a bunch of activity on the surface of the water. I wasn’t quite sure what it was until I got a little bit closer and they was about 100 dolphins. The Dolphins came right up to the boat, swimming under the back of the boat and jumping up and out of the water. You could see them swimming underwater and then pop up and then swimming just below the surface back below again amazing! We just sat and watched the dolphins for about 20 or 30 minutes. We watch them play we watch them jump swim and frolic about in the Pacific. It seems at his asked if they were actually putting on a show just for us. What amazing animals they are.
After that we motored out for another 10 or 15 minutes and decided to see if we can catch little bit of wind. To my surprise as soon as we turned the motor off and pulled the jib out we caught wind blowing about two or 3 miles an hour. Nice! We sailed about in extremely calm seas at about 4 or 5 knots and just enjoyed the peace and quiet. We can still see the dolphins jumping in and out of the water in the distance and the sun was warm at about 75°. Just perfect. As we turned around to head back into the harbor we spotted what look like to old-time tall ships. I felt as if I was in a time machine taken back to the days when pirate ships fired cannons at each other. The detail and craftsmanship on these boats was amazing it was a delight to see them out sailing. Everything is going absolutely perfect.
What an amazing day out sailing. We saw dolphins, huge ships and tall ships and have a great smooth sea. On the way back to the morning we see a cool Harbor 20 tacking up the harbor. He makes a comment that he seen my blog! How cool is that! A total stranger that I run into that tells me he has read my blog! I grabbed the hook to grab the mooring lines and it gets caught a lot of rope next to the rudder. Before I know it, the boat turns unexpectedly and CRASH…into the side of another boat! Luckily I saw it just before it was about to happen and put the boat into full reverse. I slow down to almost nothing as I hit the other boat. I looked over both boats and no so much as a mark! Wow that was lucky…. pulled into the mooring with my ego just a bit hurt. Note to self: never get an end mooring space.
The pirate ships you saw look like the Lady Washington and the Hawaiin Cheiftan (501c3 non-profit run ships out of Washington). My introduction to sailing as an adult was on the Lady. (I met some of the crew and 2 weeks later joined her as crew for 2 weeks. My first full day on the ship we left our slip in San Francisco and headed out the gate into a storm and 19 foot seas toward Eureka, CA. (This was March/April of 2011).
Sailing on the Lady changed my life. And since then I’ve joined a sailing club and built up my ASA credentials and done a bit of racing as well (I’d call our club’s races sub-beercan, but 1st place for the season is 1st place all the same!). I haven’t seen anything as wild as 19′ swells inside San Francisco Bay, but I’m looking forward to getting back out on the open ocean this summer.
More info on the ships: http://historicalseaport.org/
Cheers!