My First Evening Sail

We had a neat experience on September 9th. We were invited to join the Gig Harbor Sailing club on an evening sail out of Seattle. We sailed on a boat call Obsession with a company called 'Emerald City Charters'. I think the boat was around 70' long. It is a retired racing sailboat so the accomodations were simple. All of us stayed on deck to enjoy the show. And what a show. It went something like this...

We began boarding around 5:45pm. Introductions were made, and places were found. Everyone ended up staying seated in the same spot for the entire trip. Monica and I sat up front on the Bow. Promptly at 6:00pm we were under way. We left under motor power, but as soon as we were clear of the city, the sails were hoisted and power was cut.

They really have the boat nicely rigged. The jib automatically furls and unfurls. They also have a power winch to raise the main. This allows the boat to be crewed by only two sailors.

It was so amazing to feel a boat the large, grab the wind and move along. The wind was more like a nice breeze. We didn't find ourselves heeled over, and clinging on for dear life, but we still moved along at a nice clip. There were no large swells so it was a smooth ride.


Dinner was served probably around 6:30. It was a homeade dinner of tasty pastries, fresh fruit and vegetables and yummy sandwiches and wraps. It was all prepared by Dave B.'s (I can't spell his last name) family. Which, I have to nice, is a very nice family. Dave is the chief instructor and manager of the Gig Harbor Sailing Club. He is the club I suppose. He's a very nice guy.

The weather was the best we could have asked for in an early fall evening. What started out as a stormy dark day, cleared off into a darkening blue sky dotted with puffy white clouds. We watched the rise and fall of a brilliant sunset in the west, followed by the lighting of Seattle city lights for the night.

It was fun to see Blake Island off to the west about 2 miles away (maybe a mile, it's hard to tell on the water), and to know we'd been there, and conquered. After dark, we passed a large buoy with two great sea lions on it. Not intending to, I startled them with my camera flash. This set them barking at us.

There were other sailboats in the bay including Neptunes Car, another racing/sailing charter sailboat from the same company. We had fun unofficially racing.

We met a lot of nice people from the club, and had a great time. We're hoping now more than ever to sell our current boat and join the club. Don't be alarmed though. This would not be the end of the Blog. My hope is to expand my rovings, and adventures. Eventually, I'd like to charter boats for my family in various parts of the world. And even further down the road, I hope to someday take and extended leave and explore the world for a while by boat.

Here are some links from this entry that might be interesting.
Gig Harbor Sailing Club
Emerald City Charters

Sail on and prosper.
Woody Anderson