VALOIS, New York - After wrestling with the intracacies of a California Appellate Court case for the morning,(and trying to write 500 coherent words for a legal audience) I took to the lake yesterday afternoon aboard my borrowed Hobie Cat, out seeking adventure.
I would like to report that I spent the afternoon racing the two young ladies aboard the Hobie in the photo here, my boat tearing up the lake just they are.
But, well, this is real life pilgrims.
In real life, you get the boat stuck in a weed patch rigging the sails, lose your life jacket overboard, forget the beer cooler on the end of the dock and watch your Teva sandals fly off into the lake - and drift directly back into said weed patch.
Still, once the overboard items were retrieved (and the beer cooler safely stored aboard - can't get dehydrated), the Hobie soared back and forth across the lake for two hours until God played one of her little sailor tricks and shut down the wind machine.
Shut the wind machine down as in zero knots.
A Hobie Cat will move in wind so light you can't feel it on the back of your sweaty neck. But even that kind of breeze was hidden as I bobbed around on a glassy surface.
A small Snipe-like sailboat got marooned about the same time about 50 yards from me, with a May-September romancing couple aboard, the September half of which (the guy, of course) had his life jacket cinched so tight his face was red as a beet. His May companion was cheery and quite a bit cooler in the black bikini she was sporting. We exchanged sailor talk for awhile though September was probably praying for wind just to get rid of me.
Whoever's prayers were answered, a zephyr of wind came up just as I had drifted close enough to their vessel to offer the other crew my last cold beer, which they turned down.
Well, September turned it down and earned a look from May that made me wince to witness it. When I last looked back at them, May was diving off the boat and might have been swimming towards land.
That teasing bit of wind lasted just long enough to get me within a half mile of my dock, when some kind teenagers (Is that an oxymoron?) came by in a ski boat and towed me the last bit into shore, fouling their propellor in the weed patch - their reward being good Samaritans, apparently.
No good deed goes unpunished, right?
The wind is up big time this morning and the temptation is almost overwhelming to shove the boat off the ramp again and head out for adventure, with more beer, a paddle, and a cell phone to call for assistance this time from one of the cousins should I get stuck, sans wind again.
Almost overwhelming, pilgrims.
Almost.
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