Appeasing the Wind Gods

Chris and I went sailing on Sunday. Well, I say "sailing," but what I mostly mean is floating... we had very little wind to work with. In fact, we spent most of the time sitting still and baking in the afternoon sun. Chris mentioned that, when he used to go sailing with his uncle as a kid, they used to sing songs to try to convince the wind to start blowing. So, we started singing a little. I tried the song "Annabel Lee" was named after, and Chris sang a sea shanty. And... it didn't work. I also tried blowing on the jib, but that didn't work either (and I almost passed out).

At one point, we saw lots of Cat's Paws in the middle of the lake, and we knew we had to get over to them in order to get our boat butts moving (I had never heard the term "Cat's Paws" until Chris informed me that it refers to the small rippled look the water gets when a breeze is moving over top of it). It's like there are a bunch of invisible kitties tip-toeing across the water.

So, I grabbed the kayak paddle and tried to get us over to them kitties.

But, once we got there, we sort of sailed back-and-forth (the wind kept shifting) a little, and that was it. So, we did our best to get to the marina. At this point, Chris was very sunburned, and I was attractively bronzed.

And, of course, as soon as we got to the marina and tied up the boat, etc, those Cat's Paws turned into Lion's Paws. Oh well, hopefully someone took advantage of the good wind (although, it rained a little bit later in the afternoon).

Between my two times out on the boat, I now have experience on scary, high winds and on boring, zero wind. I decided that I'd take Terror over Boredom any day!