With the blindingly brilliant sun boiling above and the calm, still waters sitting silently below, you'd think being on a sailboat on a hot summer day would seem preferable to beating the baking pavement as you seek the shade of the next tree on your walk. Not necessarily though. For one thing, if you're walking, at least you have the benefit of the breeze of your own passage. On a boat on a calm day, with no wind, in a sheltered marina, you don't even get that.
We have a tarp that we put up, draped over the boom and secured to the lifelines, to provide shade from the glaring heat of the sun. It helps, but if we go out into the bay to sail -- assuming we want to use the mainsail as well as the jib -- we have to remove the tarp, leaving no shade at all. We're considering rigging up some form of bimini, but have not done so as yet. So ... the shade of the tarp and resorting to just the jib (which, with little to no wind, doesn't help much in the way of movement) or the motor, or no shade and hoping to catch a breeze while trying to line up the mainsail to act as a shade barrier (which only works if the meager wind bothers to puff in the right direction).
We decided, on a bright, hot summer afternoon, to leave the tarp up, rolling it back from the port corner near the bow just enough so that we could at least see where we were going, turn on the motor, and chug along toward Lake Ontario, heading for Burlington Beach. We passed two groups of racers -- that is, small two-crew (or sometimes just one crew) sailboats from the nearby clubs, working fiendishly -- and slowly -- to navigate around the racing buoys set up in the bay. Not an easy task with no wind, but fun to watch anyway. A bunch of smaller motor boats sit on the perimeter, keeping an eye on the proceedings, the majority of them spotters, making sure no one gets into any trouble as they race (or glide languidly along, seeing just how close they can get to the other racers). Keeping out of their way posed no problems as we motored past -- unlike a previous day with actual wind when I passed the tiller off to Mike as dozens of these small sailboats soared straight at us. I trusted Mike's capabilities far more than my own when sailing mostly upwind right into the maw of so many sharp white teeth, er, triangular white sails.
Anyway, we glided past without incident and made it to the bridge with several minutes to spare. When the half-hour sounded and the bridge rose, three sailboats and two tall motor boats roared under from our side, and another sailboat came from the other direction -- the most activity I'd seen at the bridge. No one smashed into anyone else, and we continued on to the beach, just on the other side of the bridge (beside where we had seen/heard the music festival a few weeks previously). We found a nice spot and I got to drop the anchor for the first time. Lots of other folks had also dropped anchor for a dip in the clear, calm waters, and the beach itself had a decent number of people, but we didn't feel crowded at all.
Mike pulled our ladder out from the lazarette (the locker that's also a bench in the cockpit) and plunked it over the side. I'm not usually very fast about getting into any swimming water, but I managed to get in up to my neck in under five minutes. Did I mention the heat of the day? Low 30s, no wind, so the cool refreshing liquid of Lake Ontario should come as quite a relief, yes? Sort of. I pushed away from the boat and it felt like I had found the spot in the Lake full of ice cubes. My arms almost felt numb despite my flailing about, but I persevered. Mike joined me despite my glowing recommendations on the temperature of the water, and agreed that the ice cube analogy wasn't that far off. I even swam around the boat, just to say I had. Understand, I'm not a very good swimmer. I do the breast-stroke/frog-kick kind of swimming, and I don't put my head under water. Self-taught swimming and all, but I get by, and I'm not out to win any awards or anything. Luckily, the extreme cold section only seemed to occur right near the ladder. Nevertheless, we didn't stay in long.
We went up to the bow of the boat to dry off. Mike brought out a mini watermelon that we demolished, although I lost one piece over the side when I tried to break off an end. Slippery little thing just popped overboard and floated away. Apparently watermelons float. (sunglasses don't, but that's another story) We stayed for lunch (shish kabobs on the BBQ), some reading under the tarp, and an afternoon nap for Mike while I kept reading. Had a seadoo dude come up and compliment me on the boat -- he very kindly waited until he had moved a respectable distance away before he powered up again so I didn't have to suffer his wake. Then we headed off back to the bay.
Once through the bridge, we decided to try the sail, see if we could get enough wind to take us home. So, tarp down (sun still high, though not quite as glaring), both sails up, and we managed to catch the wind, which kindly picked up just enough, and from the right direction, to get us going at a decent clip. Mike even tried to get the boat into the marina on sail alone (the jib, as we dropped the mainsail just before the marina), but the wind deserted us just as we passed through the channel buoys marking our marina. He did get us to within a couple of slips of ours, but finally had to resort to the motor to take us in. We had tried the same maneuver the evening before in minimal wind, only making it as far as the end of B dock before stalling, so we were getting closer (Bruce called out his congratulations on making the effort). One of these days, Mike is determined to sail in all the way. Wish him luck.
We have a tarp that we put up, draped over the boom and secured to the lifelines, to provide shade from the glaring heat of the sun. It helps, but if we go out into the bay to sail -- assuming we want to use the mainsail as well as the jib -- we have to remove the tarp, leaving no shade at all. We're considering rigging up some form of bimini, but have not done so as yet. So ... the shade of the tarp and resorting to just the jib (which, with little to no wind, doesn't help much in the way of movement) or the motor, or no shade and hoping to catch a breeze while trying to line up the mainsail to act as a shade barrier (which only works if the meager wind bothers to puff in the right direction).
We decided, on a bright, hot summer afternoon, to leave the tarp up, rolling it back from the port corner near the bow just enough so that we could at least see where we were going, turn on the motor, and chug along toward Lake Ontario, heading for Burlington Beach. We passed two groups of racers -- that is, small two-crew (or sometimes just one crew) sailboats from the nearby clubs, working fiendishly -- and slowly -- to navigate around the racing buoys set up in the bay. Not an easy task with no wind, but fun to watch anyway. A bunch of smaller motor boats sit on the perimeter, keeping an eye on the proceedings, the majority of them spotters, making sure no one gets into any trouble as they race (or glide languidly along, seeing just how close they can get to the other racers). Keeping out of their way posed no problems as we motored past -- unlike a previous day with actual wind when I passed the tiller off to Mike as dozens of these small sailboats soared straight at us. I trusted Mike's capabilities far more than my own when sailing mostly upwind right into the maw of so many sharp white teeth, er, triangular white sails.
Anyway, we glided past without incident and made it to the bridge with several minutes to spare. When the half-hour sounded and the bridge rose, three sailboats and two tall motor boats roared under from our side, and another sailboat came from the other direction -- the most activity I'd seen at the bridge. No one smashed into anyone else, and we continued on to the beach, just on the other side of the bridge (beside where we had seen/heard the music festival a few weeks previously). We found a nice spot and I got to drop the anchor for the first time. Lots of other folks had also dropped anchor for a dip in the clear, calm waters, and the beach itself had a decent number of people, but we didn't feel crowded at all.
Mike pulled our ladder out from the lazarette (the locker that's also a bench in the cockpit) and plunked it over the side. I'm not usually very fast about getting into any swimming water, but I managed to get in up to my neck in under five minutes. Did I mention the heat of the day? Low 30s, no wind, so the cool refreshing liquid of Lake Ontario should come as quite a relief, yes? Sort of. I pushed away from the boat and it felt like I had found the spot in the Lake full of ice cubes. My arms almost felt numb despite my flailing about, but I persevered. Mike joined me despite my glowing recommendations on the temperature of the water, and agreed that the ice cube analogy wasn't that far off. I even swam around the boat, just to say I had. Understand, I'm not a very good swimmer. I do the breast-stroke/frog-kick kind of swimming, and I don't put my head under water. Self-taught swimming and all, but I get by, and I'm not out to win any awards or anything. Luckily, the extreme cold section only seemed to occur right near the ladder. Nevertheless, we didn't stay in long.
We went up to the bow of the boat to dry off. Mike brought out a mini watermelon that we demolished, although I lost one piece over the side when I tried to break off an end. Slippery little thing just popped overboard and floated away. Apparently watermelons float. (sunglasses don't, but that's another story) We stayed for lunch (shish kabobs on the BBQ), some reading under the tarp, and an afternoon nap for Mike while I kept reading. Had a seadoo dude come up and compliment me on the boat -- he very kindly waited until he had moved a respectable distance away before he powered up again so I didn't have to suffer his wake. Then we headed off back to the bay.
Once through the bridge, we decided to try the sail, see if we could get enough wind to take us home. So, tarp down (sun still high, though not quite as glaring), both sails up, and we managed to catch the wind, which kindly picked up just enough, and from the right direction, to get us going at a decent clip. Mike even tried to get the boat into the marina on sail alone (the jib, as we dropped the mainsail just before the marina), but the wind deserted us just as we passed through the channel buoys marking our marina. He did get us to within a couple of slips of ours, but finally had to resort to the motor to take us in. We had tried the same maneuver the evening before in minimal wind, only making it as far as the end of B dock before stalling, so we were getting closer (Bruce called out his congratulations on making the effort). One of these days, Mike is determined to sail in all the way. Wish him luck.
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