Sail On: Living, learning, and loving life.

I know I shared at length in the last post about my humans and their Opti boats. But would you believe they’ve learned to sail even more boats than that? As a dog who spends most of his life frolicking on solid ground, I had no idea that humans have such a plethora of water vehicles.

In addition to the Opti, Elijah and Penelope have learned to sail a Bic. When they came home after sailing and said, “Guess what?!? Today we learned how to sail a Bic,” I was very confused. I said, “How on earth would you sail a pen?”

Turns out, the same company that makes pens also makes sailboats. Who knew?

The Bic is quite different from an Opti. For one, it’s super zoomie (like me). Also, and this is very important, you don’t have to bail water when you capsize, which is one of the best things about it. There’s no water to bail because the boat is flat AND it goes fast. It must be the perfect boat, right? Well, not quite. The Bic is a very tippy boat. It capsizes a lot, which can either be frustrating… or feel like a fun challenge. From where I was watching, it definitely seemed like my humans were enjoying the challenge, especially when they had a three-boat pileup. What some onlookers might have seen as an alarming situation, I’d just call teamwork.

As much fun as they’ve had with the Bics, one of Elijah and Penelope’s favorite boats to sail is the Hobie Cat. It’s a small catamaran that you can pull right up onto the beach. It has two sails (the mainsail and the jib) and two rudders, which are what steer the boat. My siblings got to sail the Hobie Cat with their amazing coach and a former All-American sailor who grew up sailing in the same waters Elijah and Penelope are learning on now.

Elijah and Penelope also got to sail a Rhodes 19! It’s a keelboat, which means it has a keel underneath (sort of like a very heavy, permanent daggerboard). The keel makes it really hard to flip. Even though Elijah and Penelope typically sail in the harbor, they got to take the Rhodes 19 out past the reef. Actually, they sailed all the way to Buck Island. When they got home, they taught us all about which parts of the reef you can sail over and which parts you definitely cannot. Spoiler alert: if you go where you shouldn’t, you hit the sneaky reef and break your boat. Fortunately, they didn't have to learn that lesson first paw.

It sounds fun to be on a boat like that, but I’m a little nervous. When they tack (that’s when you turn to go in a different direction), I worry I might fall out. Also, I’m not totally sure whether or not I’d get seasick. I think my human siblings are very brave to sail the open seas.

One of the amazing things about sailing in St. Croix is that the wind usually comes from the same general direction—between north and east. I’m not great with directions (I mostly follow my sniffer), but Penelope explained that the island is kind of shaped like a compass. You’ve got East End, North Shore, South Shore, and West End.

Understanding the wind is important as a sailor. You actually change how close you hold your sail to the boat depending on where the wind is coming from (that’s called points of sail). It all sounds a bit complicated to me, but they seem proud of understanding it and are gracious with me as I learn. Maybe one day I’ll do more than watch from the sidelines. Maybe one day I’ll board that vessel and sail off into the sunset. But for now, I’ll just keep living, learning, and loving life as I watch them do the same.