Walt, our hero

No, not that Walt. This is not another Disney posting.

I was just sitting at my desk (in the land of un) when I remembered a story I wanted to share with you. In the middle of a hot July, my good friend Jenn and I headed to her parent's cabin at Pine Mtn. Lake. I was so excited to spend a weekend away in the wilderness. Well, pseudo wilderness. We were are a cabin, which was (and is) just as nice as anyone's house. Upon arriving at the lake, I convinced sweet little Jenn to rent a sailboat with me. These are tiny, little 2-person boats. She was OK with renting one, because I gave her false security in my ability to sail the boat. You see, I told her that I was more than capable of sailing this tiny, little boat, because I had been sailing before. This statement is true. What I didn't tell her was that my sailing experience was as a passenger on a large sailboat, almost yacht, in San Diego. COMPLETELY different. However, I figured it couldn't be that hard and that I could handle it - no problem. After all, I catch on easily!

So, the facade was working as we headed out the middle of the lake. It was a fairly breeze day, so we didn't have a problem catching wind in the sail and I knew how to steer the rudder - so we were golden! That was, until the wind died and we were stuck in the middle of the lake. Jenn looked at me and said, "Now, what?"

Silence... Not ready to admit defeat, I calmly stated that, "We just need to wait it out."

Eventually, the wind picked-up, again and we were off. Of course, the wind decided to die down, again, and we were stuck in some reedy area of the water, near the shore. I was NOT going to get out of the boat in that water. Ew! I am always afraid of water I can't see through. You know, because some crazy water snake is going to bite my toes off! I couldn't believe we were stuck in a place I couldn't smoothe-talk my way out of. There was really no excuse. I could tell that Jenn was getting wary of my "technique" but politely didn't question it. Finally, when I kept getting us about 10 ft from the reeds, only to immediately return did Jenn looked at me in question to our dilemma. I just shrugged. This was the point when she frankly asked me how to get out of this situation.

My reply: "I have no idea."

"I thought you said you knew how to sail?" She asked in a voice that was a little less than thinly-veiled panic.

"Well, I've been ON a sailboat, before," was all I could say. At this point I was extremely amused that I had been able to convince her to get on this boat. She wasn't very spontaneous at this point in her life. (Now, she is very spontaneous. I am not taking full-credit for that, just some.) I knew it would all work out. Worst case scenario would be to swim to shore - Pine Mtn. Lake is very small. She wasn't as confident in my abilities and began to get a little mad, yet she was still having fun and I could tell that situation was stretching her adventurous muscle. Luckily, a man name Walt actually swam out to us and taught us how to tack. Without our permission, he just climbed right in. Even though he sank our boat and tossed Jenn overboard in the lesson, we did, indeed, learn to tack our way back to shore. I was very proud of us. Our only casualty was Jenn's watch, which will forever remain at the bottom of Pine Mtn. Lake in tribute to our sailing lesson a la Walt.