Basic Boating

The snow has vanished now and with it my complaining. Good thing on both counts.

It turned out that despite my vows not to go outside (other than to GreenHouse and Bunkie) during the week-long snowdays, I did.  I went to school.

Tuesday and Thursday nights found us at the local high school, a 3 minute drive away through The Horror. The occasion? The Canadian Power and Sail Squadron Basic Boating coarse. All in preparation for getting my Boat Operator license, which has become mandatory here since the time we last had a boat.

Yet another daydream during these wintery days. In a few months we'll be sailing in new waters.

The boat is a Nonsuch 26, a boat that Howard has had his eye on for a long time. He took possession of it at the end of September so we haven't been sailing yet, other than a couple of times with the guy who used to own it. It's been put to bed for the winter.

The acquisition of this boat was less a financial transaction (although it was) and more an adoption. The couple who sold it to us had it for 20 years or so and have been everywhere. They are now turning 80 and a few years ago "My crew mutinied" as Ed would say and he very reluctantly put it quietly up for sale. Irma had obviously come to terms with the end of her sailing life, but it was very much an end of an era for Ed, and one of those little reminders of mortality.

It took a few months and many conversations for the deal to be struck, but eventually the buyer and seller took a trip together to take it from its berth at Deep Bay down to Nanaimo for haul out, and by the end of the 8 hour trip, Ed finally decided to sell it to us.

Stevie & Mikey aka Steve & Mike

It's many years since we've been sailing. The Boys were little then and we used to spend weekends on the boat cruising the Thousand Islands on Lake Ontario, which were perfect with all the park islands, where instead of anchoring off, we could dock for the night to let those little legs go off running around on terra firma. My memories are of the evenings, when we'd read Swallows and Amazons out loud. Later, when The Little Boys were snug in their V berth, I'd be reading, listening to music and sipping Calvados - and to this day a sniff of that apple brandy transports me back to that time and place. As I recall, we never did finish that book so maybe I'll go find it somewhere and bring it to the new boat - along with the Calvados. A bit of nostalgia. The boat was a Kelt 7.6 and it was called Marney.

The (Little) Boys on Marney

Later, when we moved to Washington, we shipped the boat down and kept it on the Chesapeake at Solomons, Maryland at the mouth of the Patuxent River. That was an entirely different kind of sailing in an entirely different geography. Initially I was excited about the prospect of a longer sailing season but it was not to be. Yes we started the season earlier, getting great weekends in, in May and June but come July 1st it all came to a screeching halt. By then the jellyfish make their way up to that part of the bay so you can't swim, which is a real shame as at the same time the weather is stinking hot and there's no wind. The shoulder months of summer are better for sailing.

When I think of that time I remember two things in particular. Eating fresh crab and Vera.

The first sight of Vera's is astonishing. There you are making your way along St. Leonard's Creek in quiet, rural Maryland, past sailboats at anchor and green fields with grazing cows, all very bucolic. Then as you slowly round the bend, there in front of you is this huge, amazing white structure with turrets and minarets, a private home completely over the top. To the left is a small marina with a shocking pink restaurant up on the hill. After docking we climbed up to the restaurant, passing through a driveway and entryway lined with big pots of banana trees. Inside it was a Kon Tiki theme with bamboo walls and floor to ceiling statues and other memorabilia. Total eye candy.

Vera's Residence

Vera's White Sands Marina & Restaurant

Speaking of eye candy, the owner of all this fabulousness was Vera who would make grand appearances greeting her customers on her way to her usual seat at the bar where a martini automatically appeared and where she could survey her realm from her perch. She was a woman of a certain age, as they say, always dressed in colorful and sparkling caftans, and dripping, as they also say, in jewels - rings and necklaces and bracelets and tiaras. Lashes and lips, bright nail polish and long blond hair. She lived in the big white house with its taj mahal roof.

Vera

Vera with husband "Dr. Freeman" as she always called him

Her story is that she and her doctor husband used to live in California but retired to this property on the Chesapeake where they bought 800 acres for development. They were great travelers, which influenced their tastes and choice of decor and they collected a lot of statues and other pieces of art from all over, especially the South Pacific. Eventually they built a very exclusive marina where all the well-heeled glamor pusses of both sexes used to come in their yachts in summer. It was an era whose time eventually passed, but Vera was still there along with the very same decor, greeting the likes of us now.

I fell for Vera and said for a long time that I wanted to be her when I grew up. On several Halloweens I dressed up as Vera. I found out recently that even though she was pretty old back then when we were there she carried on like that until just a few years ago when she died at the age of 95.

Both the Kelt and the "new" Nonsuch type of sailboats are not that common on the west coast; they were built in Ontario and most are still east. If you look at the picture of the new boat at the top of this post, in the background at the next dock of this little mid-Island marina, under the orange covering is a Kelt 7.6, the same kind of boat we used to sail in way back when. Another one of those coincidences (?).

The same type of boat we used to have, at the next dock at our new marina

I wrote the boating test last week and am now the proud owner of the Pleasure Craft Operator Card. This time with no Little Boys to babysit, I'd like to learn more about sailing with this boat. Be less of a can opener and more of a sailor. I'm told the single mast design is easier to sail which suits me fine and may save my nails. Next week I'm back to school again, this time for the Maritime Radio Course to get my Restricted Operator's Certificate (Maritime). Off to learn my alpha, bravo, charlies.