Welcome!

Ramblings about Writing and Sailing

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Greetings, random people who fell off a boat (it happens) and washed up in my corner of the internet,

How about a story? Because a story is more interesting than me sitting here and regaling you with tales of my personal glories (of which there aren’t many, and, even if there were, to continuously regale you with them would be a bit egotistical). And anyway, if you’re interested in egotistical tales of my personal glories, that’s what my About page is for.

This past summer, I worked at a camp in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. The camp was on the shores of two connected bays—one largish, the other fairly small.

Late one Friday afternoon when there were no families at the camp, I got to take out a small boat called a sunfish. It had been a long, rough day. Fridays were the days that we cleaned the camp, and cleaning had taken longer than it should have. I was tired and frustrated, but at least it was the perfect day for sailing.

I started in the smaller of the two bays, and had to tack (basically a zig-zag back and forth so you can get where you want to go without crashing into the shore or shoals) to get into the larger one. When you’re sailing in a sunfish, the tiller controls the rudder, which sticks off the back of the boat and steers it. The sheet (a rope) controls the sail. If you loose control of the tiller, bad things happen. If you loose control of the sheet, bad things happen. If you’re trying to sail solo and keep control of both the tiller and the sheet, things get much more difficult, especially when you come about (turn the boat while tacking). But anyway, it was a really good day for sailing.

Once I got out into the larger of the big bays, I tacked back and forth, finding angles where I could go for a good distance before having to come about. I also spent a decent amount of time panicking when I didn’t immediately catch the wind after turning. Did I mention the shoals?

Several sizeable shoals lurk in the lake (actually, they’re marked quite clearly with buoys, but you’d think they were lurking from how they seem to sneak up on you). After you come about, it usually takes a moment for the wind to catch in the sail again. If you are a newer sailor, it can take longer than a moment. If you are near a shoal and this happens, the waves start to push you towards the shoal and your best hope is to catch the wind as fast as possible.

But I didn’t hit any shoals. Instead, I stayed out for a hour and a half, just sailing. The best part was when I got the boat to heel. Heeling involves pulling the sail in, so that the pressure of the wind on the sail makes the boat tilt. You sit on the other side of the boat, brace your feet, and lean out backwards over the water, balancing weight of the sail with the weight of your body. Sometimes the bottom of the sail is six inches or less above the foot of the water. It’s terrifying and you feel like you’re about to fall over. It’s also exhilarating and one of my favorite things to do on a sunfish. Sailing is so much more fun when you’re tilting. And tilting isn’t tipping…until it is. But I didn’t tip that day. I just spent a lot of time tilting.

Now, you might be wondering why I just spent a substantial amount of page space telling you about my experience sailing.

As I pondered how to introduce my blog, this story kept coming back to me. I reflected on my experiences and realized that writing (and maybe blogging, as I sense even from just trying to write this post) is a good bit like sailing. One moment, you’re sailing with the wind catching your sail at the perfect angle, the boat tilting just right, leaning out to balance the sail with your weight, and feeling the thrill of exciting danger. Then you come about, and suddenly you can’t find the wind, even though you knew where it was a moment before, you’ve lost your grip on the tiller, and the boat is far closer to the shoal than you estimated.

It’s terrifying, frustrating, panic-inducing, and exhilarating. It’s finding the right balance between tilting and tipping. It’s like solving a ever-shifting puzzle. In so many ways, sailing is like writing.

What would you compare writing to?