Over the Bounding Main
Seniors Choice Newsmagazine
August 2004
by Rudy Loeser
"A sailors life, Columbus said,
is fraught with risk galore:
A cruel storm, a deadly calm,
a faithless wife ashore.
(Anon.)
Whatever other secrets he had, Columbus (who was married to Filippa Moniz, by the way) he kept to himself, or he might have risked his patronage and not have found the Caribbean. The same holds true for Giovanni Caboto, alias John Cabot, who claimed all of North America for England. The fact is that, both being sailors, they opened up new worlds. It goes without saying that, were it not for sailing ships, millions would not have come to these shores from Europe, and hundreds of thousands of Africans would not have been torn from their homeland to be sold as slaves in America.
We are fully aware of the fact that this may be a weird way to begin a paean for sailing, but we have to get your close attention in order to make the truths about sailing absolutely clear. Such as wives having lost their men to the rush of the wind snapping the sails on a jibe prior to running before the wind into a sunset. Another truth is that boats are more faithful than wives, storms are gentler than mothers-in-law and a day on the lake or a week on the open sea beats driving to the office and filling out tax returns.
Come for a sail.
In this part of the country, we have more blessings than we have a right to expect. We have lakes - navigable lakes. We have an ocean, dotted with fabulous islands and shoreline riven by fairytale inlets. And we have winds. We have prevailing westerlies off the coast, which allow you to go below to make a cup of coffee or heat a pot of stew. We have the intriguing weirdness of the interior wind pattern, which, sometimes, will not allow you to go below for more time than it takes to pour a glass of chardonnay. Lake wind may start as a westerly, and, within minutes, change direction and become a southerly, then die off, only to come back as an easterly.
I only mention this in the event that you, dear reader, think that sailing is a piece of cake, as the saying goes. It is not. Sailing is a demanding mistress. But the rewards she bestows are manyfold. There is absolute privacy. There is the absence of unwanted noise. There is a precious sense of peace. You can find all this on many of the lakes of the Thompson/Okanagan region, and nowhere more so than on the Big One, Lake Okanagan.
How does one become a sailor, you ask? Ideally, you know someone with a sailboat who will give you a ride, to let you decide whether you can be comfortable with floorboards that are seldom horizontal. If you're still with us after that experience, or even if you've never been aboard, we suggest that you enroll in a sailing course at one of the many yacht clubs where, over a course of a few weeks in spring or early summer, you will be taught the fundamentals in classroom settings and on the water. You will meet others who, like yourself, have been fascinated by the sight of triangular sails making boats glide over the water and who, like you, have wondered what it would feel like to be aboard. Now is your chance. And chances are that you will be hooked for life, as are those whom you see racing their boats on Wednesday evenings and those who sail the breadth and length of the lake on weekends, putting in at a welcoming yacht club, or at one of the lakeside restaurants and pubs, or in a quiet cove. In good time, you will buy your own boat, find a home for it in a moorage basin or club and, for evermore, and help perpetuate the myths and truths about sailing.
Possibly you will buy, for your first boat, something small, probably second hand, to get the feeling of ownership of the water and the elements. Five will get you ten that, within a couple of years, you will come down with a severe case of "twofootitis". You'll step up from a 21 footer to a twenty-three, then a twenty-five. For lake sailing, you really want to stop at 28', 30 tops. For that, you'll get comfortable sleeping quarters for at least four people; you'll get a galley (kitchen), a head (toilet), and maybe a shower.
What more do you get at home, we ask? Naturally, you can buy a bigger boat, to show off, but that one would probably be happier sailing out of a Vancouver berth, like the swift 36" New York we sail out of Thunderbird Marina. This writer's ultimate fantasy involves a 42' boat moored in the Mediterranean.
I'm glad we had this exhilarating sail before a southerly wind that drove us steadily toward Vernon, then changed its mind while you were doing your magic in the galley. I enjoyed diving overboard for a refreshing swim, fully aware that; at that point, the lake was 583 feet deep. Life doesn't get any better than this. Wonder what the rest of the world is doing? Or thinking?
The wind has quieted to a whisper, like a lover imparting a secret. The sun, having presided over dinner, has gone over the horizon and here we are, in this quiet moorage, far removed from the world, with Johann Sebastian Bach keeping us gentle company. Good night, my beloved.
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