We have been in the great Pacific Northwest for over a week now and all I can say is; ‘Enough already with the rain.’ We are keeping busy enough with diaper finishing tasks for Renee’s business, but we are getting way behind on our bicycle riding. Meanwhile I have been copying photos from the 1970’s into the computer and these show many of our early experiences with sailing. The rest of this blog will give an in depth discussion of my many years of sailing fever

In my youth I was drawn to airplanes and built many models over the years. Being from land locked Spokane Washington I had little exposure to sailboats. In college I took up railroading as a temporary occupation, so that explains my railroad interests.

I had to interrupt my college education with a hitch in the Coast Guard in 1963, and here is how I became interested in sailboats. Boot camp was twelve weeks on Government Island in Alameda California. In boot camp, as many of you will attest, you spend untold hours standing in formation waiting for something to happen. Government Island, true to its name is an island surrounded by water. Beyond the watery barrier, civilian life goes on at it’s own pace. It seems like every afternoon several beautiful one design sailboats would gracefully glide out of the moorings across the estuary under beautiful white sails. My imagination would follow them out into San Francisco Bay leaving my stiff, miserable body there on the “Grinder.”

A few months later on a date with Judy, my future wife, I talked her into joining me on Lake Washington one beautiful summer day. There I talked her into renting a small sailboat. Remember, I am an expert. I have graduated from the Coast Guard boot camp and I have watched sail boats for several weeks while I was there. I managed to sort the lines out and get the sails hoisted and got them to look like the sails on the boats I had watched. We even got a hundred yards or so out into the lake before the wind died. At the end of the hour we paddled back to the dock and cut our losses.

The next bite of the sailing bug was many years later after I had finished my Chemical Engineering degree at Washington State University and we had finished paying off my college loan and accumulated our two children.

We bought a nice foam core fiberglass “Lightning” class sailboat. For months I spent my spare time reading about and practicing sailing. We launched the boat and sailed most every weekend. We tried a little racing, but mostly we enjoyed piling all of our camp gear in the boat and motoring to a secluded beach on a lake or on the Snake River above Ice Harbor Dam. We often invited friends along. We would sail as the winds allowed.

The Lightning is a rather small open boat. It is 19 foot long, but it really doesn’t handle two couples and their children very well. I soon recognized that Judy often had the roll of baby-sitter while I sailed with the friends. We sold the Lightning and in January of 1974 we purchased a 23 foot Aquarius with a cockpit that seated up to 6 people and a cabin that slept five, (according to the literature.) It also had a miniature galley (kitchen) and miniature head, (bathroom.)

We spent our weekends learning to launch and sail the new boat. We selected the name “Regal Jug,” for the boat and painted a “Water Carrier,” style jug pouring water, on the stern of our new boat. The name is made up of the first two letters of each of our names, REnee, GLen, JUdy  and GAry.

We had decided to sail with the O’ Cassa club sailboat cruise of the San Juan Islands in August of 1974. I immediately developed a list of essentials including a set of proper anchors, stern pulpit, life lines, dodger curtains and nautical charts that we would need for the cruise.

On that cruise we met many new challenges. We made several friends. We discovered that we were not fully prepared for the conditions we met. We also learned that almost every one else was not as well prepared as we were.

Almost every year since then, we have returned to the islands of Washington State and British Columbia. We have made many changes to the rigging of the Aquarius. We have sewn some of our own sails. Almost always we have sailed with friends and we have many wonderful memories from these cruises.

So what is the draw of sailing in this age of boats with high performance engines? It’s the power of the wind harnessed for your use. To me, it is the almost magical movement of the boat through the water into the wind. Power to me is not the acceleration of hundreds of horsepower forcing you back in the seat. Power is pumping the tiller to head the boat into a gust of wind to wring a few extra feet to windward and feeling the boat heel from the wind pressure and then surge ahead as the gust passes. It is also slipping quietly through the water and hearing the waves lapping against the hull. It is ghosting along on a breeze that is barely enough to get the sails to fill. It is watching the diving ducks, cormorants, seals and even Orca whales that barely notice your passing.

I have heard somewhere that those days you spend sailing are not deducted from your allotted days on earth.

“Ready ‘bout!…helm’s a’lee!”