The $2000 Sail
Voyage 20, Marina del Rey, July, 2005
Do I have a boat ? Oh yeah, I do, a sailboat. Normally I wouldn’t find myself asking that question, but it had been five long months since I had spent any amount of time on the Heart of Gold. Stealth had done me in---the show had us working Saturdays since the new year. And top that off with selling my condo in Hermosa Beach and buying the house in Westchester. There hadn’t been a weekend free to sail in almost 7 months!!! And this week was no different, so I decided to go for it and go out on a Wednesday after work.
Ron was my crew for the day, he biked up the path from Redondo and met me at the slip about 6:30. With no beer, no food and only a Diet Pepsi from the machine we prepared to see if the 7 months off left me rusty on the tiller. Much to my surprise, I was rust free and we navigated out without any errors. The boat seemed as if it hadn’t had any time off at all. It started right up and ran like a dream. We motored through the harbor passing the racers coming back and then past the breakwater. Killing the engine we setup for the normal route toward the Santa Monica Pier. Although there was very little swell, the wind waves and slop from the afternoon made our beat pretty bumpy—too bumpy for me. We passed a much larger cruiser which was also having a time battling the waves. After a few minutes we bared off---out to sea on a slightly smoother course. With about a mile between us and the breakwater we turned south onto a nice smooth run. We did a fair amount of surfing and glided back towards the south entrance.
All in all in wasn’t anything eventful, and the fog coming it did kinda dampen the mood. But it was the first time out in many, many months. So it was a much needed sail.
As for the $2000 part of the sail....that’s what I had paid in slip fees since the last time I had been out!!