I just finished a long, cold week working in Toronto. Sitting in boardrooms with views of a frozen Lake Ontario I couldn't help but lapse into thoughts of taking Ge'Mara out past Point Atkinson and up Howe Sound. The weather forecast called for a break on the weekend with some sun and no mention of fog. A massive snowstorm hit the North East at the end of the week and for a few moments at the airport I stared out the window at the blowing snow and wondered if I'd be getting home any time soon. Fortunately we where wheels up a few hours later. I practiced knots.
Saturday morning came and out our window False Creek reflected the same steely grey skies that we've been seeing for weeks. I got a text that my sailing buddy for the day had to bail. I told Brenda that and she started looking around for some place to hide. A few hours later we were driving to the boat together. We worked our way around Pacific Avenue and looked out at English Bay. It was like glass. Wasn't there supposed to be wind? The weather buoy at Halibut Bank indicated close to 10 knots. Then again, Halibut Bank is in the middle of Georgia Strait. I guess English Bay didn't get the memo.
I told Brenda I had a few things to do on the boat and if things didn't improve we would just go home. "That's a good idea" she said. As we walked down the street to the boat it started to rain. Out of my peripheral vision I saw Brenda put her hood up.
On the boat we made some tea and I puttered, avoiding the real issue at hand. Our Walker Bay dinghy needed to be hoisted off of the deck where it was sitting and back into the water. Over the last couple of weeks I had been trying to figure out how to use one of the halyards to hoist it up and over the lifelines but the spinnaker halyard seems to be jammed from lack of use. I decided to try using the main halyard, even though it was on the wrong side of the mast. I manhandled the dinghy into a vertical position and lashed the halyard to it as best I could. Over my shoulder I noticed several people sitting on the heated patio at Carderos watching me. It occurred to me that this could go very badly with one person. I called Brenda. She came up and held the dinghy steady but after I took some weight off of it with the winch it slid sideways and left a distinct mark on the deck. I disconnected the halyard and we manually lifted it over the lifelines, only partially filling it with seawater in the process.
With this much work having gone into getting the dinghy off the deck, there was no way I wasn't going out. The rain had stopped and the Canadian flag tied to my backstay was starting to flutter. Surely this would translate to a nice breeze out in the bay. We left the dock without incident and motored out past the floating Chevron towards the Lions Gate bridge. An hour later we were in English Bay. Still motoring. Brenda sat underneath the dodger looking very cold. I didn't want much wind, just enough to allow us some quiet time with out the engine running and to say that we had actually sailed the boat since we had brought her home. I had left the heat on in the cabin and I suggested to Brenda that she go below and warm up for a while. She was gone before I had completed the sentence.
Not long after I reluctantly turned the boat around and headed for home. Even if we did want to head all the way out to the strait to find wind we would run out of daylight. When Brenda came up top again she was relieved to see the direction we were headed. I was disappointed but together we enjoyed looking at the city from the water, so beautiful even on this gloomy day. A while later we were tied up again and driving home. The sun poked through the clouds.
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