There are a number of firsts we experience in life, and stay in our memory for our entire lives.  Many of those events are deeply personal and private.  This is not one of those stories.  Many of those momentous firsts we experience are also meant to be shared, and take place on a public stage.  Sometimes with dozens or hundreds or even thousands watching.  This particular event I’m thinking of was definitely witnessed by less than a dozen, and perhaps even no one.  I can’t be too sure, as I was pretty involved in trying to make certain things work for me the way I thought they should.

For the longest time, I got the strange notion, that I would like to sail.  I’m pretty sure it had something to do with listening to much too much Jimmy Buffett music, but that’s another story.  Being the bookworm that I am, I thought the first thing I should do was to read as much information I could about the ancient art of sailing.  I made a trip to the library and got all kinds of sailing books and checked them out.  I poured over them for hours.  Upon completion, I was pretty sure I understood the basics about how to sail a boat.  One of the things I discovered, was that this was one of those things you could only go so far with before you needed to get your hands dirty.

Well, that opportunity would present itself soon enough.  Upon pouring through the local classified paper, I read an ad for a little 13 foot Snark sailboat for sale.  And it was only about $200.  I made a phone call, and drove out to the gentleman’s house.  As it turned out, he had won the boat in a draw from a local pet store.  PetSmart I believe.  The boat was constructed of high density Styrofoam, and come with one sail.  I purchased a life jacket and a canoe oar (in case the wind dies), and some tie downs from the local Canadian Tire store.  With the car upside down on the roof of my Saturn, I drove out to a small man made lake in town called Fanshawe Lake.

I launched the boat, paddled a little off shore, and spent the next few hours trying to figure out why the boat refused to respond to my every command.  Just as I was about to head home, I realized that my rudder had two settings.  The first setting had it lifted out of the water, and the second setting had it in the water.  Needless to say, I had bee trying to sail around for hours with my rudder out of the water.  Anyone who has tried to steer a rudderless boat, can understand how difficult that can be.  I lowered the rudder into the water, and all of a sudden everything worked.  The experienced of being powered and moving around this small lake completely under wind power and my own skill was remarkable, astonishing, spectacular and life changing.  10 years later I still get a kick out of it.