We intended to work on the boat this one last day and sail next weekend. Really. We really did. We got up early and were hard at work bending on the sails and filling the water system and checking all of our new plumbing fixtures and water heater for leaks, and cleaning out lockers, and...then the boats began filing out of their slips one by one, many of them for their season maiden voyages, all of them waving as they passed by... and by 12:39 I said "Enough. I'm tired of working on the boat. Let's go sailing." I'm sure you realize by now how difficult it was to talk Tim into it. Within 15 minutes we were trying to remember how to back out of our slip (has it really been 7 months since we last did this???) and we had barely cleared the mouth of the channel before we turned up into the wind, hoisted the mainsail, and shut off the engine. The feeling of relief was palpable, very nearly of opiate proportions. The accumulated tension of the last few months of work slid away with the bubbles swirling from the rudder and for the next 5 hours there was nothing but me, Tim, Nomad, the water, the blue sky, the puffy white clouds, and the ever present peanut butter and jelly and Cheezits. 12-16 knots of perfect wind and Nomad was clipping along at 6.2 knots on her clean bottom and slick new sides. We made several trips back and forth across the lake along with a short tour of Cove 4 and Coles Creek (just to be sure they were still there for our upcoming cove-outs) and headed back to the marina. When we arrived at the mouth of the channel someone else was headed in so, of course, we decided to give them lots of room and after a textbook jibe went for another spin across the lake.
It was a perfect afternoon doing my favorite thing with my favorite person. It just doesn't get any better than this.
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