Sailing

[vaneramos]

Yesterday afternoon a spirited wind drove choppy waves through the channel, blue under the sky. I couldn't resist the call.

The Laser is a 14-foot sailing dinghy designed for speed and easy handling by a single sailor. We've had it at the cottage for a 25 years. I learned from my cousin who was the same age but went sailing practically every weekend with his father. Bill showed me how to watch the play of wind across the water, and read the sail's responses.

Sailing on Lake Fletcher is a sure test of skill. Even with white caps in the channel, the water in our bay can lie calm. Wind funnels down glacial valleys, sometimes seeming to come at you from two directions at once. An unexpected gust can easily capsize the boat. Fortunately the Laser is easy to right. That's how I learned to sail.

Some summers I've been too lazy to assemble the boat like a jigsaw puzzle with all it's pieces: mast, boom, centreboard, rudder, all the rigging with names like clew, mainsheet and boom vang. But yesterday the lake summoned me.

I like to sail upwind through the narrows into Robinson's Bay, then tack back and forth at leisure across the breadth of water there. All the trouble is worthwhile once I'm beam reaching across the wind, body hiked beyond the gunwale, spray flashing over the bow, sunlight on my shoulder, the boat slipping across the lake at speed with no sound but a murmur. Wind is the angel embraced in my arms, one hand on the tiller, one clutching the mainsheet to hold the sail, pregnant with energy. Later I will feel tightness in my untrained trapezius muscles. All the fuel I need is right there, between me and the sky. Thrills without guilt. Sometimes I am Ged chasing his shadow across the world. Mostly I am a being of water, air and light. The rush of water past the hull might be blood coursing through my veins.

It's one of those moments when I'm truly alive.