Jes was supposed to go racing again yesterday but the guy that owned the boat decided to drop out of the race on Friday.  So, for our Sunday, we rented at 22-footer and sailed around the bay by ourselves for the day.

I stopped at Whole Foods for our lunch, which included sushi rolls and lots of pickled ginger.  I snacked on the ginger all day and didn’t get seasick.  Seriously.  I didn’t take my usual dosage of Dramamine and felt just fine.  It was amazing.

There was light but steady wind today.  The tide wasn’t very strong but when the tide was going out of the bay in the afternoon, it made it a little more challenging to get back to the harbor.  The day went rather smoothly but not without a few  “uh oh” moments.

1) We had gone out as far as we were allowed to and had to turn around.  By the time we finished the U-turn, we saw a container ship out in the distance.  It looked like it was headed in our direction but we weren’t really sure.  Luckily we caught a good wind and made it past the path of the giant ship in time.  That could have been disastrous.

2) There was a strong gust and the main sail got a little loose.  As we were trying to make some adjustments, the boom came flying across the boat and nearly knocked Jes overboard.  Lucky for him, I was close enough to grab onto him.  He could have easily fallen into the water today.  Phew, that was close.

3) We had finally made it back under the Bay Bridge toward the harbor but then got caught in the wind shadow of the bridge itself.  We lost our speed and were quickly drifting back towards one of the bridge towers (the water was flowing against us).  That was when we powered up the motor and got the heck out of there.  We only needed to motor for about a minute before we were able to get some wind back in the sails and turn off the motor.

Here’s a little video clip of us out on the water:

Overall, it was a good first solo sail for the two of us. We learned a few unexpected lessons and I experienced sailing without the help of medicine. We also got some sun and had a great time out on the water.

Here are more photos from our adventure.