Time to Break Out the Handwarmers...

The weekend before this last one, Chris and I went sailing. Yes, we went sailing on a 53-degree drizzly day. Guess whose idea that was? I'll give you a hint: It wasn't mine. But we had to go, because the season is quickly drawing to a close and because the wind was perfect.

Here's a list of the layers I wore:
Sports bra
Thermal shirt
T-shirt
Sweatshirt
Winter coat
Running tights
Windbreaking pants
Wool socks
Hiking boots
Ski gloves
Beanie

And, even wearing all that, I was chilly. I have this thing called Reynaud's Disease... essentially, I have horrible circulation, which is really bad in my extremities (fingers, toes). If you click on the above link and look the scary-looking pictures of fingers, that's what happens to me.  And I'm just cold-intolerant in general. Winter is like a living hell to me. That's one of the reasons why I bought my new boots... gotta keep them toes warm!

Thank goodness I thought to bring a pack of handwarmers with me when we went sailing. Have you all seen these things? You open up a packet, shake the little pouch so that the various ingrediants mix together, which causes a chemical reaction that produces heat. Beautiful, wonderful heat. Over the years, many of the people I know have given me handwarmers as gifts, so I have this huge stockpile of them, which I'm planning on using all winter long.

Anyways, so I stuck the handwarmers in my gloves, which, I'm sure, was the only reason I could actually make myself useful and pull on ropes and stuff (things like gripping the steering wheel of my car or carrying a bag that is even slightly heavy greatly aggravate this condition in my hands).

It was another very windy day, so we reefed the main sail (which basically means that we made the surface area of the sail smaller) and we managed to explore part of the lake that we had never seen before because we were FLYING. It seriously felt like we were going 60 miles per hour for a minute there (Chris said it was probably more like 10, hahaha). To me, the craziest part was when we were going directly with the wind... it feels like you're barely moving (because you're going with the wind, there's not really any wind blowing against your face or anything)... until you look at the scenery flying by you. Amazing, really.

Oh yeah, did I mention we were the only CRAZIES on the entire lake? No? Hmmm, well, we were.

Then, I started to get pretty chilly and made Chris take us back to the marina (much to his dismay). I'm thinking I'm much more of a Tropical-Sailer-Type... Chris, though, comes from hearty Irish stock, and prefers to freeze his ass off.

Oy. Winter is coming....



I.HATE.COLD.



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!

To Be, or Knot to Be...

Yesterday, Chris asked me if he could claim some of my time after he got back home from teaching guitar. When I asked why, he said he wanted to spend some time going through the knots that a sailor needs to be able to tie. So, I said, "why knot?" (bwahahaha!).

I did pretty well, if I do say so myself. Here are four of the knots I learned to tie:

Clove Hitch

Figure 8 Knot

Bowline

Square Knot

I'd like to point out that Chris did knot help me with the above knots. Those are all pictures of knots I tied myself. It's knot something I ever would have thought to spend an evening doing, but, I did certainly enjoy learning a few new things. Plus, if I'm going to be a helpful sailor (and knot one who just sits there doing nothing), then I need to be able to do some things without help!

Once I had reached my limit on time spent tying knots, I grabbed my camera and started playing with it. So, while I took pictures of Coltrane:

The poor bun's eye is still all goopy and drippy. I've been giving him antibiotics twice a day, but it still doesn't seem to be getting better. Frowny face.

Chris spent time trying to teach himself how to tie a Monkey's Fist:

Try knot to be jealous of our knot-tying skills, mmmmmmk?

Maiden Voyage (Fo' Rizzle!)

Who's crazy enough to go sailing the day after a hurricane? These kids, that's who!

Annabel Lee, meet I-Van the Terrible (That's Chris's van's name)

The boat from the car.

Got the mast up!

And then the boom.

Then the sails (yes, this is a lot of work)

And we're off!

It was quite windy at first... at one point, one side of the boat was IN the water from us leaning so far over. I may have panicked a bit...

Main sail



Sailors



We found this new cheap light beer: Port Republic. Its motto is "Sail Close to the Wind."

A small island we anchored behind.



Chris's rudder assembly worked great!



Yaaar!



Captain

Everything worked great- Pretty awesome. Hopefully we'll get to go on a day that isn't quite as windy, so I feel comfortable enough to take the tiller and learn a little. For now, I've got the jib (the baby sail in front of the mast) down.

How were your hurricane weekends?

No Boys Allowed

 Whelp, this weekend was full of laziness. We got the sailboat all ready to go and drove an hour and a half to try to finally conduct our maiden voyage, however, when we got to our destination, it started storming violently. 20-ft Mast + Lightning = Fried RyanandChris. So, we turned around and went home. And that was all the work I did for the whole weekend (though it was hard work; we pumped up the trailer's tires by hand, secured the boat to the trailer, oh, and pushed the damn thing up the hill in our yard and over the curb and into the street). Chris and I watched a lot of Mythbusters, made yummy pasta, read our Michener books (ain't we cute?), and went on a beer-tasting expedition.

Late this week, Chris is leaving town to go to Long Island for over a week. Which leaves me in an empty house (except for the bun!). I am going to miss Chris a lot, but, there's also part of me that is excited to have a little time in the house alone. That would be the girly part of me. I believe I posted before about Secret Single Behavior, but what I'm really looking forward to is getting to do whatever I want whenever I want. Sometimes I think men do this regardless of whether or not they live with someone else, but I certainly do not. 

With Chris gone, I can go shopping and take as long as I damn well please to browse, even if I'm not even planning on buying anything. And I can do this and not even feel a little bit guilty. I can eat sushi and drink red wine and watch a movie where things don't blow up and there's a happy ending. And NOT EVEN FEEL GUILTY. I can eat dinner early if I feel like it. Or I can eat dinner at 10:00 PM. AND. NOT. EVEN. FEEL. GUILTY. I can eat three popsicles in a row and no one will ever know, so I WON'T FEEL GUILTY. I can have girlfriends over for the eveing and take over the entire house and not feel guilty about having to kick Chris out (No Boys Allowed! Kind of like the Get Rid of Slimy GirlS club in Calvin and Hobbes (G.R.O.S.S.)).



http://brainism.blogspot.com/



Well, I'm sure that's how I'll feel for a day or two. But after that, I know I'll feel lonely...

http://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes

Me and The Annabel Lee

So, I realized that I never told you all that we named our sailboat "Annabel Lee." It was between that and "Anne Bonny" at the end there. Chris and I skirted the issue for weeks (but it turned out that we both sort of wanted that name all along). I got a text from Chris at work the other day that simply said "Annabel Lee." and I simply texted him back "Agreed." And that was that. So, Annabel Lee is the only other female Chris is allowed to handle (I've decided that the Xbox is a male anyways... ), and I'm sure she'll get lots of attention, especially on weekends...

Chris has been working on getting the rudder assembly put together (the boat came with everything but the rudder assembly b/c someone stole it off the back of the boat when the previous owners had it), and it's finally finished. Chris was ingenious getting and making all the parts we needed (b/c no one sells 1982 Sunbird rudder assemblies). He made a part we needed out of wood and then took it to a metal working shop and had them machine the part out of steel, he made the tiller himself, and, he got all the hardware at Lowe's. Pretty awesome. See below for pictures:

The rudder plate Chris had made

The finished rudder assembly!

Now, we will finally get to take 'er out on the open seas a week from Sunday (and by "the open seas," I mean a big lake). I still haven't gotten Chris the captain's hat I've been threatening to buy (which he says he will refuse to wear), but I may get myself this:

http://www.cafepress.com/

Or this:

http://www.cafepress.com/

Because I have to make up for my lack of sailing skills with humor. I think Chris would look great in a captain's hat... but apparently it's not "cool" or something. Pssssht, whatever. And I'm wondering if I should buy boat shoes. Why? Because that's what you're supposed to wear on sailboats; apparently they are comfortable and don't leave scuff marks. Although, our sailboat is pretty much one big scuff mark, so, yeah, it's probably not worth the expense.

I will keep you all updated on the ongoing process of me learning to sail. Chris has sections of his Annapolis Book of Seamanship picked out for me to read (Baha, "seamanship" is a funny word...). Sorry, there I go again with the humor to compensate for my lack of knowledge and skill. Anyways, he also made a tiny "sailboat" out of wood to show me what the sail does when the boat turns against the wind and with the wind.

Chris showing me the ropes

The fan is the wind source

But, I figure to begin with, I might as well try to look good while on the boat, because that's the contribution I can make right now. Oh, and I can pack a damn good lunch! What do sailing-types eat, I wonder?

In other news, I still have vertigo (which was especially bad at my band's gig last night for some reason), which makes me feel like I'm on a boat. I wonder if I was on a boat it would feel like I was on land...