Two and a half Rookies and a Sailboat

As we motored away from the docks at Frenchman’s in Pickering, the thought ‘what am I doing here’ entered my mind several times. Earlier in the day the boat had been launched and the mast reinstalled. All this was new to me. The people we had purchased the boat from had helped us every step of the way in preparing the boat for launch. They were wonderfully confident, but of course they had owned and lived on boats for many years. We on the other hand were flying (sailing) by the seat of our pants. Nothing but Book knowledge and the bit of sailing that I had done the previous summer at the sailing club.

The previous owners were an older couple who had purchased Strathgowan (the name of our boat) with the purpose of retiring and sailing down to the Bahamas. However, after a couple of years of owner ship and living aboard they came to the realization that their arthritis was not going to let them pursue this dream. I suppose they could have be upset about that, but we never saw any signs of it. Instead of sailing south, they had purchased a trailer and a new truck and were going to camp their way around North American. They seemed very much ready to get going and I am glad that they were still able to pursue the dream of travel even if it was on dirt.

As we motored up the channel, I looked back to see Ian (previous owner) standing at the end of the docks watching us sail away. He had a pensive, somewhat forlorn look on his face. I’m not sure if he was sad to see his sailboat sailing away or if he was worried about the two obviously inexperienced young people who were heading out onto the water. With one last wave goodbye we were off into Lake Ontario.

The weather was not great, the wind was up a bit, the skies were grey and rainy and the waves were about one meter. Not a great day for us to be sailing alone for the first time. The distance between Pickering and Mississauga is maybe about 25 nautical miles – not that great a distance. However….

A. (my wife) was between three and four months pregnant at the time. Now, the way that the Alberg 30 is designed a person can stand inside the companionway facing outside and when the desire so arises they can simple lean out and let ‘er rip into a bucket sitting on the ledge of the cockpit. Then the person behind the tiller, can grab the bucket, fling it over the side, rinse it out with lakewater and place it back for the next episode. Ah, the joy of sailing one’s own boat.

Sailing with a single reef in the main and a number two jib we arrived home to our new port in about six hours. Even though the trip left a bad taste in A.’s mouth, we still counted it a success, plus now the boat was about 15 mins away from our house. Now we could spend all the time we wanted on her.

Stay tuned for our first big trip and our first big weather all rolled into one.