MORE SUMMER FUN... August (Part 73b)

When we got to the ferry slip on Friday morning I had a very smug feeling. Seeing the long line of cars with boat trailers behind them all lined up had me patting myself on the back for forethought. We parked the car on the mainland and walked on the ferry with my sailbag over my shoulder. As I’ve mentioned the three ferries were very small. They could only handle three cars that had boat trailers at a time. As we boarded the ferry I was looking for my friend Buddy and his wife Carol. He’d indicated that he’d be racing on Friday the last time I’d seen him but there was no sign of his boat either in line for the ferry or on it.

All I had to do was put the sails on the mast and boom and then take the boat over to the hoist. I don’t think I’d ever been the first one in the water in all the years I’d sailed in this event. When it was time to head out to start the races there was very little wind. That was the direct opposite of the conditions from one year ago. We actually had to paddle part of the way to the starting line. The start was in the opening to the harbor, just on the fringe of where the tides were fairly strong. The tide was going out which was exactly the wrong way for the way the course was laid out. If you got into the middle of the tidal water it was flowing at about 3 knots and hour. The wind, when there was any, was about 2 to 3 mph which meant the tides were pushing us faster in the wrong direction than we were capable of going the right way. Very frustrating!

There was a three hour time limit for the first boat to cross the finish line. That was a joke. No one had even rounded the first mark two hours after the start. When the race officials finally figured that out they canceled the race. We’d been in the boat for over three hours and Elle, naturally, had peed. The problem with that, while racing at this location, was that unless there was a lot of wind with waves there was no logical way for Elle to get wet enough to hide that fact. At our local sailing club she would get wet to her waist right after we launched the boats off the beach. On top of the fact that there were no waves to splash her was that these shorts were brown. When dry they were the same color as the powder you would use to make chocolate milk. When wet they were the color of semi sweet chocolate. Elle had peed while sitting on the deck and then wanted me to heel (lean) the boat over enough for her to get her butt wet. When I did it only made the situation worse as the dark brown color was now all across her bottom. I told her she could always jump overboard but that didn’t go over so well.

When they called the race off they sent launches out from the club to tow the boats in. We ended up as the last of seven boats in our tow. The boat right in front of us was a bigger one than mine and had three people for crew. It also had seats in the cockpit which made it a much more comfortable boat to sail/race in which Elle kept reminding me. There were three females in the boat front of us and as they threw us a tow line I thought I recognized the one who was skippering it. We were all told that the launch would have to stop the tow at the mouth of the harbor because there were just too many boats moored inside it. That meant we’d have to paddle. As I climbed up to the bow (front) I noticed the three women horsing around. One was sitting on the deck with her feet in the water. I couldn’t hear what they were saying. I wasn’t looking at them when I heard a scream. I looked up and saw the girl who’d been sitting on the deck in the water. There was a lot of yelling but it was obvious to me that the girl in the water was not in any trouble. It was that she was mad about being pushed overboard. I was paddling towards their boat and saw the other two trying to get her back on board. It just wasn’t working. She was fairly short and the sides of the boat were too high for her to help herself. The other two were trying to drag her, by her arms, up and into the boat but it was also obvious they were hurting her by doing so. By then I was almost up to them. The sides of my boat were considerably lower so I offered to help her aboard and she, visibly upset, agreed.

She was dressed in shorts and a sleeveless blouse which was plastered tightly to her chest. Her name was Natalie and when we asked her what had happened all she’d say was that she got pushed overboard. It was a bit awkward. I did ask the name of the woman who was skippering the boat she’d been on and when she told me I recognized it immediately. She was the oldest daughter of one of my father’s college roommates. I remembered her from when I (and she) were much younger and our parents would get together during Summers. She had a sister who was my age and a brother, Jon, who was a few years younger. Jon and I had been fairly friendly up until I stopped coming home from college during Summer break and then I lost track of the whole family. I wanted to touch base with her once we got ashore.

The tide was almost dead low when we got to the hoist area. That meant the crews had to climb up a ladder that was nailed to the bulkhead to get off the boats. It was probably eight feet to the top. I honestly hadn’t thought about it until Natalie started to climb up the ladder and then I got one of the best VPL’s imaginable. To climb up the ladder you had to stick your butt out and away from the rungs of the ladder. With her wet shorts already sticking to her body, her panties were perfectly outlined. I could even see the side seams. The only problem was that Elle caught me watching her as she made her way to the top and gave me a smack. The thing that saved me from showing a very obvious bulge was that my sails were pretty much wrapped all around me. Normally, Elle showing a VPL would ”charge me up“ and she did when it was her turn to climb up. Her wet brown shorts did show a nice one but it was Natalie’s that won the prize for the day.

To be continued...