We had just gotten married. It almost didn’t happen. I’d gone to Fiji and sailed from there to Australia with an old British SAS guy whose autohelm was out.
Great stories there but I’d burned through my travel money and wanted a boat of my own. So I came back to Seattle and my ex was still there and one thing led to another and we got married.
She agreed to go with me and signed us up for sailing lessons. I wouldn’t have bothered but she wasn’t secure enough.
Every weekend we went up to Bellingham and chartered a yacht with instructor and did the ASA sailing course and coast guard navigation class on Wednesday nights.
Most of the sailing instructors had been men but on the last course it was a woman. She was young and pretty and knew less about sailing than either of us. My wife was pissed and also catty.
The wind picked up and we were supposed to learn how to heave to—point upwind and trim the sails so the headsail backfills and the main keeps you pointed straight upwind. This basically stops the boat so you don’t run up on shore or a reef during a storm.