A little lift

Good friends and long time riding buddies showed up this morning to see our new boat. They went out with us once, many a moon ago, on Nomad, and later on Juno. After a tour of our new digs we very gingerly (the V-drive still making ugly noises) motored out onto a placid and mostly empty lake. The main sail was pretty soaked from dew since we hadn't put the cover on after yesterday's drift, and though the deck monkey (that would be me) wasn't very optimistic, we figured we could at least hang the sail out to dry. We rolled the jib out as well, mostly for the hell of it.

Turned out there was just enough breeze to have Kintala gliding gently across the wavelets. It didn't matter that we were only making a knot or two; we weren't really going anywhere anyway. An hour or so later we were about out of lake and going just fast enough to ease through a tack. Gliding slowly the other way Deb handed a fantastic lunch of Chef salads up from below. We munched and laughed and drank a couple of cold ones...

I'm feeling a bit constrained by our little lake and the items being added to the "to-do" list are getting frustrating. But you know what? No King anywhere on our little planet had as nice a meal as we did today - gliding through placid waters like we were powered by pure magic, spending a day with good friends, in the cool of early fall...even the corps bugs couldn't put a dent in the day.

Kintala has plywood in place of hatches, her new head still sits in my garage. She sports no solar panels, no wind generators, lacks a dingy and a dodger, the auto-helm won't, and her drive chain has a seriously weak link. Sometimes the big water I want to live and sail on seems far, far away. Getting there is taking pretty much all of my best efforts and sometimes I wonder if it will be enough.

Somehow days like today help a little, and salt water seems just about in reach after all.