Today we took the yacht out for a sail. Dad suggested we go out in the tinny but I wouldn’t have a bar of it because I hadn’t been sailing in years. It was a cold morning and we all went down early all rugged up. We didn’t bring the dog with us because she would have needed to go ashore to pee and we didn’t have the dinghy with us.
I was nominated skipper, which basically meant I got to watch the GPS and baby-sit the autopilot. As dad said “You can steer if you want but this is 2009. Nobody steers anymore”. For an old boat, it had a lot of modern equipment on it and I was happy to just adjust the autopilot as we rounded the beacons on the GPS and drink a beer and look at the amazing view. There wasn’t a breath of wind but the sun was soon up and it was an absolutely magic warm day on the bay. The water was crystal clear and at one point Dad looked over and said “shit, it’s shallow” but I looked at the depth sounder and said “You know what ? It’s over 10 meters deep”. You could just see everything on the ocean floor as we passed over it. Since there wasn’t much wind to speak of we motored all the way over to Fraser though we did put the sails up they weren’t doing much. We had the trolling line out the back of the boat on a goomi with the hope that we might pick up a mackerel.
By the time we got over there the wind had picked up a little bit and we turned down-wind to make the best of the situation and turned the motor off. It was so quiet and peaceful. We were barely moving and certainly getting nowhere fast, but the point of the day was to sail, and sail we did. There were so many other boats out, fishing and sailing. A small group of racing yachts had started their race at the marina and were now chasing each other down the headland at the north end of the bay. It was beautiful to see all the spinnakers up. Even if we weren’t moving much ourselves it helped the sailing atmosphere to see other yachts doing their thing.
We were having visitors later in the afternoon so we had to reluctantly turn back towards Hervey Bay. Just as we did, a pod of dolphins popped up nearby and followed us for a bit. A little later we spotted several more groups. We were practically surrounded by dozens of dolphins ! Sailing along in total silence among the dolphins was just an amazing experience. Well, silence apart from Triple J. We were listening to the Hottest 100 of All Time and we were down to the top 50. There was some great songs, apart from The Beach Boys who somehow snuck a song into the top 50 which left us all just dumbfounded. The wind had picked up a bit and we were making a nice pace but we had to start the motor to head into the wind to round the beacon and avoid the shallow waters near Big Woody Island.
The sun was warm and the afternoon was just beautiful. From a gloomy looking morning it had turned into a perfect day to be out, if not so good for sailing but I didn’t care as the sails were filled at least and it was so enjoyable. The Catalina is a very roomy boat downstairs and the fridge had cooled down the beer to taste. It’s such a cute little boat. As we head home I wonder if I will ever be able to share this experience with Suki. It’d be cool for sailing to stay in the family as I certainly enjoy it and although I likely won’t buy one, I might hire one again one day for a day trip such as today. We make plans to come on an overnight trip to Fraser soon and headed home to finish off the top 100 at home. A great day out.
