The shortest voyage

 I was lying in bed early on New Year’s Day 2022 and suddenly I remembered that the weather forecast was for low fifties and a period without rain. Why not take a walk down to the lagoon and do a little sailing I said to myself, it might be my last chance till after the spring ice. After breakfast I plugged in my transmitter and receiver batteries, took a bath, and did things around the house. My phone said the drizzle was supposed to stop around 1:00. Shortly before then I went outside to the front lawn to see if there was any wind at all which there wasn’t. Not even the slightest puff. No branch on any tree was moving at all.

After smelling the damp air a bit I decided to grab the boat anyway and head down to the lagoon. When I got down to the river there was a beautiful mist rising from the mirror smooth water, and I mean mirror smooth. Not a ripple in sight. I knew from long experience that appearances can be deceiving, there might be a tiny breath along the ledge, just enough to move her a bit. 

So I hoisted the mainsail of the catboat, using her actual working halyards just like the real thing, switched on the radio and then the receiver, picked her up, and put her in right close to the ledge which was covered with ancient goose droppings from all year. I thought to myself “You are definitely a die hard”.

Sure enough the cat boat had just a tiny breeze and slowly, very slowly made its way parallel to the ledge for about a minute. I managed one video, and one still shot on my phone to commemorate the occasion. 

“Should I jibe and head (the catboat) out from the ledge? Oh why not. She jibed and turned to the middle of the lagoon. I took a deep breath, she’s still moving, still barely moving, oh good, that’s good, she’s still inching along, okay let’s see if she’ll tack back to the ledge..toward…the..ledge. For a moment she sat in the mirror smooth lagoon completely stopped like an in-animate sculpture, far from reach. Okay, take a deep breath, don’t worry I said to myself. Finally she tacked ever so slowly and drifted home to the goose poop covered ledge. The voyage lasted maybe four minutes.

Walking home I saw a guy on one of those stand up paddle boards. He was gliding elegantly through the mist out on the river. His paddle board left a long wake that disturbed the mirror for quite a distance. At first I didn’t know what it was that could cause such a long V shaped trail of waves. Then in the distance I could make out his tiny figure obscured by the mist.