I got home from choir this morning in a wonderful mood and found Herby on Windpuff having just tested out his completed sculling oar. It was an uncharacteristically warm day with a few wispy white streaks across the sky, allowing the sun to finally melt the mountains of snow on land. We just had to go out for a sail.
Windpuff’s original name was “Dove.” We bought her to be a day sailor for when we wanted to go out spur of the moment. Since Wisdom is our home, she is never ready to go at a moment’s notice. She’s big and has our various belongings strewn about so that heeling over would create a catastrophe, not to mention the fact that we just took off all her sails for winter maintenance. Now, Windpuff doesn’t have a working motor, so we were never able to get her out of the slip safely and confidently until today. Thus, it was today that we became truly grateful that we had her. Within ten minutes of making the decision to go out, we were sculling away from the slip and hoisting the sails.
It was a much needed break from any obligations that we left on land. We were only out for about two hours, but as we glided through the water with just enough wind to fill the sails, the sun warmed our faces and everything felt right. Even Morty enjoyed himself thoroughly.
The sculling oar has finally made it possible to enjoy our second boat, and I’m so excited to finally be able to benefit from having it. I love Wisdom, but I feel a special connection to Windpuff because I was involved in the process of choosing her. We looked at her together on the hard and I even got to choose the new name. Windpuff also taught me to sail. It made more sense for me to learn on her because she only has two sails, she’s 30 feet long, and she’s very responsive to movements of the tiller. I helped sail her to her new home almost a year ago and we haven’t been able to sail her since until today! I’m excited for our future adventures with our little day sailor.
