Perfect Days

Have you ever had one of those days? The ones where everything just falls into place perfectly? When there's a parking spot right at the front of the store, you find a twenty-dollar bill on the sidewalk or that perfect 900 inch LCD TV with wi-fi and a beer fridge in the stand is on sale for two hundred bucks?

Me neither.

I'm particularly reminded of a day I had learning to sail on the West Coast. We were well into the week long course and our instructor decided that we could choose our own destination for the day. Our choice?  A cool fjord-like area called Teakerne Arm. The best part was we could almost sail the boat right up to a waterfall - dipping the bow in, if we wanted.

We had been on the boat for four days; maybe it was time for a shower…

In any case, like every day before, each of us had a turn as "Captain". With only four of us on the boat - my darling wife, who was my darling girlfriend at the time, her brother, the instructor and me - we all had a lot of time yelling "avast ye" and "trim the sheets" and so on from our spot at the tiller.

My future brother-in-law had the first turn and we made pretty good time from our anchorage. It was going to be a couple of hours to get to the mouth of Teakerne Arm and another hour or so to get to the waterfall.

After an hour, our instructor had us change places. My turn to take command and be able to order the other two around without recrimination! We were making good headway when I grabbed the tiller. Suddenly, a great calm came over the area and we slowed gently, sails luffing as we lost speed. We looked eastward to the shore, about a kilometer away and saw the trees and shrubs waving at us in a brisk breeze. We looked westward and saw a ripple on the water a few hundred meters away, kicking up little whitecaps on the water.

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Right where we were, nothing. A big bubble of no-wind. And no comments about how much I talk. Try as I might, even heaving the rudder back and forth to try to gain speed, we were going pretty much nowhere fast.

After about twenty minutes, our instructor said for us to change places again. My darling came to the tiller and I moved up to a crew position. No sooner than her hand touched the tiller, the wind sprang up, snapped the sails full and off we shot, flying towards our destination. If I hadn't already been sitting, I would have fallen flat on my butt.

We flew towards to the Arm, winds freshening, sails trimmed and going almost as fast as the boat could go. Even when her brother took over, we continued to fly across the water.

We had turned into the Arm when it was my turn again. We still had a good breeze, even inside the fjord, so I was hopeful we could get to the waterfall soon. It was almost lunch, after all.

We could see the Falls in the distance, less than a kilometer away. I grabbed the tiller, ready to get there and wash the boat and everyone in it. And the wind promptly disappeared again. Gone. Not a breath. Not a ripple.

This couldn't be happening. Not this close. Totally not fair. I believe I said that once or twice or seven times.

I blew into the sails. I tried using the rudder as a propeller again. I offered to start the engine to get us there, but our instructor nixed the idea, saying we were on a sailboat, not a powerboat. I expect he thought I'd just break it or something.

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Throwing my hands up in defeat, I switched places with my darling again. I hadn't taken two steps away when we were almost at full speed again, a gust of wind blowing sea spray down my collar.

Just one of those perfect days.