4 - Boats hate me

First of all, let me begin by saying it's been four weeks since I've started Story Time Sunday... and I've actually been posting consistently. Yay me! (Shout out to those who have been following me on Instagram too, where it is currently day 17/100 for the 100 days of travel challenge that I've been doing). All in all, hurray for consistency and doing what I said I would.

Because it's been a while since I've done any real traveling (and I'm not sure if I want to include the day-to-day parts of my Europe trip in Story Time Sunday), I thought I might just take some time to tell you a little bit more about myself. Still through stories, have no fear.

For those of you who don't know me well, I'm a bit of a fish out of water. I practically grew up in the stuff. My family lives just outside of Cobourg - Ontario's "feel good town" with a beautiful white sand beach where plenty of tourists come - and my grandparents live on Lake Huron, which is where I first learned to swim and sail. In the summer time, I also head up to Peterborough's Little Lake to teach other youths to canoe, kayak and sail.

One time, I was out camping with a bunch of friends who also sail. We were up in the Kawartha Lakes, and actually sailed out to our campsite. It was pretty late when by the time we set everything up, so rather than doing any actual sailing, we all sat around a fire before going to bed. The next morning, we packed a day bag and rigged the boats for a day of sailing. Now, I want to remind you that I've been sailing for years and am quite good at it. We were in a bit of an older boat, and the rudder didn't exactly want to stay in, but I didn't think it would be an issue to hold it down. So up to locks we go, out onto Deer Bay. Everything was going well, as we hadn't yet put the sails up, and it looked to be an excellent day for sailing as there was a nice, strong wind. Sailing out into the bay was fine, but once we were out in the open everything went haywire. The wind picked up, nearly blowing the sheet (the rope that holds the sail) out of my hand. I wrapped the sheet tighter around my hand, but the wind was so harsh that the sail almost pulled me out of the boat. I had to pass it over to my friend, who was much larger and stronger than I, so that I could focus on keeping us controlled, and the rudder in place. Apparently that was the wrong decision.

I bring the boat about, trying to face us into the wind. The boom had other ideas. We come about, and things slow down, but the boom keeps coming. It hooks onto my life jacket and literally throws me overboard. Remember what I said about having to hold the rudder down? Well, guess who was holding the rudder as this all went down. Yep. Me. There we are, in the middle of a windy lake with a sail that can barely be controlled, and me and the rudder in the water, getting further and further away from the boat by a millisecond. I did the only thing I could do. I threw my friends the rudder and hoped that they would be able to get back to me. They didn't. I was just drifting along in the lake, watching them get further and further away even as they tried to sail back to me. Thankfully, we had thought to bring a small motorboat with us on this trip, so one of my friends was able to come get me. But man was it quite the adventure. Of course, you all know about my near flip experience in Venice as well. If you haven't seen that video yet, watch it below!

#storytime #sunday #boat #canoe #kayak #sail #gondola #water