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May 2005
 Sailing 1

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justin (@) deepdrift dot com

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GyozaQuest is a non profitable site,

The CBI fleet, under the Long Island brigde

A day in the harbor. Again...

Kind of nuts if you ask me. So even after the previous series of events, I decided to go out on an even crazier trip. This time with people who supposedly knew what they were doing. Maybe I'm going a little bit overboard with this sailing bug.

I went on my first harbor trip sailing with my boat club this weekend. It's a different world sailing on the harbor, versus sailing in the little pond. Even on the windiest days out in the basin, there aren't anywhere near as much. Of course it was a particularly bad day, not a small craft warning, which I've been assured that is common for early season harbor trips for this group.

At the end of the day I was exhausted, a bit chilled and probably a little dehydrated. I can't believe I've been too cheap this whole time to sign up for one. But maybe my boat club is perfect for me, the Rhodes 19's we sail are old, reassuringly sturdy, and probably seaworthy, but not exceptionally new or well maintained. They're not exceptionally large, or fast boats, thus the limit of where they can go is probably the Boston harbor, they have to be back inside the Charles neslted into their morrings by nightfall. The experience of being out in a small boat on the harbor is reassuring for me, I don't know why.

Of course I pick the first trip of the season. The weather was cold wet and rainy. There are other trips, and it's a pretty good way of burning an entire Saturday. I think I was on the verge of hypothermia all afternoon. I don't know, maybe some people are into that kind of thing. They like the idea of going out in adverse weather, the high winds and the waves making it a challenge. It's their idea of fun. Well I guess that describes me a little bit.

Going through the locks, and seeing the train bridge which goes to north Station. Hmm... I'm sure they'd let you on a kayak through the locks, but would you want to? We passed the Aircraft Carrier JFK, which happened to be parked in the harbor this weekend. Lots of police boats, and the did have some of the airwing on deck. I thought that there was an F-22 on deck, but I might have been mistaken.

I now know what "day marker five" is in the harbor. Going out to George's island was an adventure.And can see all the navigation signs. I can read costal charts etc... Plus the 3 foot swells, and how blown out the sails are on those boats. We got passed by the exact same boat.

The feeling is rather odd, I wasn't very talkative with the other people on the boat, so spent most of the trip just on the water looking at the waves and the wind.

I tried to go see the carrier on Sunday, but the lines were too long and they were turning people away. After being turned away, I decided just to tool around anyhow on my bike, riding down into south Boston. As expected there was a traffic jam, caused by the combination of the ship, and the graduation. So carefully navigating my way around, and getting stern but friendly looks from a lot of the Boston Police officers doing their job, I ended up at Castle Island, on the tip of South Boston. From there I could look out, and see both the carrier, and the boats leaving the harbor, even seeing some of the places I sailed past the previous day. So it was somewhat reflective. I suppose a fitting end to a melancholy weekend.

May 25,2005