I considered not sending this week's newsletter about my sailing lessons. I really did. And perhaps by the time you finish reading, you'll wish I hadn't.
You see, basically it was pretty boring.
As I watched the weather over the weekend, I was afraid we'd be rained out, but driving up to Hoover on Monday, it was a beautiful night, just cooling off. The promised cold front was finally bringing a relief to the excruciatingly hot weather we'd been having. And that was something I was enjoying until I crossed the final brige to Hoover Yacht Club. Looking out at the lake, I saw whitecaps. Whitecaps don't appear until the wind is at least 11 knots, and the way these looked, the wind wasn't borderline, it was in fact far greater then those required 11 knots.
I parked and got out of the car, and felt some very strong puffs of wind. Remembering my swim last week, I wasn't sure that this was the night for us to do any serious learning. I didn't really believe that sailing the 15 footers we have would work very well in that kind of wind.
As it turned out, the instructor agreed. Some of the puffs coming in over the lake were over 20 MPH winds, and while he believed he and another instructor could manage it, he also believed we'd be swimming in a matter of minutes. As anxious as I am to get out in a boat and learn to sail, I already know how to swim, and it seemed to me that's what I'd be doing if we went out. I didn't argue. The rest of the class felt the same way.
After some review work and a tiny bit more info on how to dock, class was dismissed.
Maybe next week.