Thanks, Elwood.

This evening, as the sun was setting over the western Taurus Mountains, I took a sailboat out on the Mediterranean Sea. It was just a little Lazer, a learner's boat, but it was damn fun!

I haven't been sailing in about four years, when my sister and I took out my uncle's MC-Scow, and proceeded to capsize it multiple time on a blustery day at Cross Lake, in Shreveport, LA. The scow is a squirrely boat, unlike other sailing vessels. Designed with a flat bottom, the pilot is supposed to keep the thing on one keel or the other, for maximum effect.

Anyhow, that was a learning day.

I really learned to sail in a Sunfish on Lake Mauvaisterre, back in Jacksonville, and did a good deal more of it in Copper Harbor, MI, where Elwood and I lived and worked during the summer of 2000. It was mostly Elwood who taught me to sail, so, thanks.

Today's was a new experience. The Mediterranean was especially choppy (apparently, an Agean storm has things stirred up), but the wind was not fast, a steady 6 knots, and I puttered around for about an hour, as far from the coast as I dared venture.

No disco music.
No Russians in tacky bathing outfits.
No absurd job.

Bliss.

I was really rusty though. It's amazing how poorly a person can remember something that they never really learned to do confidently. I breezed of the dock, looked really good doing so, and didn't have any problems until I was about a half kilometer from shore, attempting my first tack. It went so poorly, that I decided to head upwind, and make a long series of close reaches and a lot of tacks for practice. Elwood and I had always tried to milk speed out of our boats, which was really hard in J'ville. Anyhow, the knack came back, and I began to get the hang of dealing with the waves and how to predict what pitching and rolling would do to my speed and direction.

I started to get... confident.

I had been heading southwest, for about a kilometer, and decided to turn around. I set myself up for a long, downwind tack, back in the direction the resort. I was feeling good, smart, and once I began heading east, decided to practice jibing. You know, just to get the hang of it, again.

In my life, I've taken three women out in a boat: my mother, my sister, and my first girlfriend, Kate Nelson. Jibing, a maneuver in which the stern (back) of the boat passes through the source of the wind as it turns, has always been a challenge for Sean. Pulling it off with an extra person consistently proved a disaster, and each of those women I share love with ended up in the water.

Not exactly proud moments.

Like I said though, it was just me, and I was feeling smart.

Of all the things Elwood taught me, knots, maneuvering, reading the wind, the love of sailing...

...today, I am most grateful he taught me how to right a boat.