JCTownsley.com

Emailed this to Cascadia tonight, a group of a couple hundred sailors
here in the NorthWest. Posting here for your amusement. Despite how
it sounds in the short email, it truly was a fun night with the family

Act One:
My Grandparents are in town this weekend. We loaded up three cars,
grandparents in their 80’s, my mother, my siblings, and their
children. Off to the coast (or the ’shore’ as my grandparents call it)
for a night. My grandparents cannot stop pointing out the rain, it
always rains in Portland they say. We walk through the shops at Cannon
Beach, everybody is talking about the “super-storm” or “monster-storm”
coming in the evening. More fuel for the fire, my grandparents worry
about Tsunamis.

Narrator:
It blew, I mean really blew all night long. Didn’t have a wind gauge
with me, nor have I looked up the data on the web to see what was going
on, but I have no doubt it was windy!

Act Two:
It’s morning, we’ve decided to check out and go home to Portland. Two
infants, three cars, buckets of rain, two eighty-something year olds,
tons of bags, a pregnant sister-in-law, thirty minutes of conversation
on how to load the cars. I sit there, gazing out the window, wishing,
despite the turbulent waters, I was out at sea.

Lesson Learned: I sail because of the simplicity. No discussion on
how best to get from a third story hotel room to the car across the
parking lot, you only take what fits in the boat, and don’t complain
that the weather doesn’t fit your schedule. My favorite toy of all the
gadgets on the boat, is not a GPS, Radar, or Autopilot, but my
windvane. It’s simple, sailors have used the idea for hundreds of
years. People have SAILED for hundreds of years. My Mac may be an
incredible machine, I love driving italian sports cars, and email has
given me the ability to meet all of you fabulous people, but when it
comes down to it, being on the water, with only your sails moving you
along and the wind brushing across your face, thats what I love!

Josh