Good and Perfect

A good day on a boat is:

• Any day nothing breaks
• Any day the weather treats you kindly
• Any day you get to sleep in with a 70° breeze wafting in through the V-berth hatch
• Any day you spend with other cruisers
• Any day you sail more than you motor
• Any day you aren't in a gray cubicle on a Monday morning

But Sunday? Sunday was the rare perfect day.

Tom and Lesa on Panacea

Our friends Tom and Lesa on Panacea texted to see if we might want to go for a short sail Sunday afternoon. (Need you ask?) By 2:00 we were out of the basin and hoisting the main and the jib. We sailed all the way to Egmont Key in 12-15 knot winds and the Island Packet trimmed nicely into it, yielding a steady speed in excess of 6 knots. The breeze was comfortable - not too warm - and the water a deep blue. As we all had plans in the evening, we tacked just before the shipping channel to the Gulf, and headed back to the Manatee River on almost exactly a reciprocal course. Four hours of perfect sailing.

The Mary T, a Morgan 38

It was an elixir, and it would have been enough all on its own, but earlier in the day some folks whose blog we follow contacted us to see if we had time to get together Sunday evening. Although landlocked in Bradenton at the moment due to a family emergency, Ken and Amy on Mary T have traveled from Florida to Isla Mujeres and then on down to Rio Dulce, Guatemala, a trip that holds some interest for us. We wanted to pick their brains. After a short tour of Kintala, we headed over to the Riverside Grill for dinner. We had a wonderful evening trading stories and laughing. All of us have been separated from other cruisers for some time and it was good to remember one of the things we enjoy most about this lifestyle.

Perfect sailing and new cruising friends? Yeah. A perfect day.

The lighthouse at Egmont Key in Tampa Bay

Longing to return...

Leonardo da Vinci once said...

“For once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards, for there you have been and there you will long to return.”

Leonardo da Vinci died 384 years before the Write Brothers' first flight, so one wonders how he gained such a clear understanding of a pilot's heart. Somehow the modern world has turned flying into such a chore that most people cringe at the idea of having to go to the airport. But for many of us who made a living in the sky and those whose life defining hobby is flying, Mr. da Vinci was spot on. Still, things change. For many who do (or did) make a living dancing with clouds the constant scrutiny of drug tests, medical exams, recurrent training, TSA requirements, check points, and bag searches, coupled with deteriorating schedules, pay, and benefits (a reality not exclusive to the aviation industry) make it a good job from which to be retired.

Many "retired" pilots keep a pathway to the sky open with small, sport type, airplanes lovingly kept in a hanger at a nearby airport. For true “pelicans” those are often sailplanes, tail-draggers, acro-birds, bi-planes, or antiques. But tin can Cessna, Piper, or Beech products will do just as well, and Sunday mornings will find a gaggle of them doing touch-n-goes at the local airport or heading off for the $100 hamburger, content airplane drivers at the helm, returning to the sky that forms so much of their self-image.

I miss that realm. No low flying machine will pass near Kintala without me taking note. Most of the time I can still tell make and model at a glance. Sometimes the sound of the engine is all the identification needed. It has been a long time since I slipped a Cub to a perfect three-point on grass, or rode the ILS right down to minimums on a dark and stormy night, but I will always be a pilot.

I am also, now, a sailor. We are approaching the start of our fourth year of living on Kintala with plans (as much as a cruiser can plan) of where we will go stretching out well into the future. But the hard fact is we have been living at a dock for many months now. The other place I long to return to lies “out there”, beyond the break water, where land is a distant shadow. It has been hard to find a path, harder than I had hoped when we first tied up here. Yesterday the long drought came to an end.

We went sailing!

It wasn't on Kintala. She is in the midst of yet another multi-day project and one must step carefully around the open holes in her sole. A cumbersome air conditioning unit / duct work array fouls her deck. The sails are down, and the inner forestay is missing. Many days of effort will be necessary before we can go sailing on our own boat again, and we are not there yet.

Panacea is a mid-30s length Island Packet new to Tom and Lesa. They had it shipped here for work (yes, I did some of it) and are getting ready to move it to a new home somewhere not far from here. But they are new to sailing with most of their experience being classes taken. Deb has spent some time getting to know them, and the invitation to join them for a day of learning the way around a new ride could not be refused.

I guess it was a typical day for Florida sailing in the late summer. Hot, with intermittent winds and the chance of thunderstorms. We spent part of the day drifting until some distant afternoon rain showers stirred up enough of a breeze to see a solid five knots. Shore was still just a few miles away, but Kintala has been sitting within inches of a pier for so long that it seemed like big open water. We heeled, tacked, jibed, played the wind, and generally had nothing short of a great day. The only down side was not being able to anchor out for the night.

Late in the afternoon Tom coasted us into the pier like a pro, though there was a bit of a struggle getting the lines run and snugged at the right length. Tying a boat midst pilings is more art than science, and it can be a black art until the same boat has been parked in the same place many a time. With Panacea resting secure we headed back to dock-bound Kintala.

But being out for the day made it seem like Kintala was a little less bound than she was. Summer is fading. The work on the boat is going well. The cruising kitty is looking better every week.

We will return soon.