Jan gave me that special look reserved for middle-aged crazies when I announced I was going sailing that morning. Rain was pounding on the roof and the palm trees in the front yard were bent over double. I was determined not to be a “fair-weather sailor” and I had dutifully read the chapter on “Heavy Weather Sailing” the night before (Sailing Fundamentals, published by the ASA, pages 171-174). Classes are great, but in the immortal words of Captain Ron, “If anything’s going to happen, it’s going to happen out there.” She kissed me good-bye and scribbled the Sheriff’s department’s Search and Rescue number above the phone, just below our insurance broker’s number. Armed with the textbook and a new Helly Hanson raincoat, I took off for the marina.

Waves were crashing over the breakwater at the lake and the wind was ripping the foam off the whitecaps. A more prudent sailor would have had the good sense to stay at the dock, but I convinced myself that I needed just this kind of sailing experience in preparation for my trip down the Baja. So, after saying a quick prayer, I pushed back from the dock, opened the throttle up full and roared through the gap. In minutes I was soaked, my hat was gone, my glasses were fogged and I was having the time of my life.

It would have been foolish to unfurl the jib so I sailed on under a fully reefed main. Soon even this was too much and I was cruising along at four knots on bare poles. This was exciting but it didn’t take too much time to decide I had had enough “excitement.” The wind was roaring in from the north and from what was left of my map, Honeymoon Cove looked like a safe haven. With an amazing display of seamanship (page 112), I found the cove, raced around the protective point and discovered flat water! It was a perfect shelter from the storm. It was calm, gentle even.

I checked “heavy weather sailing” off my list of skills to learn and decided to practice anchoring next (page 127-129). Lake Pleasant, Arizona, was formed years ago when a canyon was dammed up and the Agua Fria River was tamed. Because the erstwhile lake was once a canyon, the shore drops off so fast you can touch the bank and still be in fifty feet of water. I motored quietly farther and farther into the cove until, at long last, my depth gauge read “30 feet.” Multiply that by a textbook, seven to one scope (page 127) and I would need to pay out my 20 feet of chain and 190 feet of anchor line.

With the “Sailing Fundamentals” book in one hand and the anchor rode in the other, I “dropped the hook” then slowly backed away. It was textbook perfect so I sat in the cockpit feeling quite pleased with myself. The sun was coming out. It was turning into a fine summer’s evening. I popped the top on a Root Beer, watched a wild burro and began to have every sailor’s nagging doubt. “I wonder if the anchor is really set?”

Finally the doubts became so great I decided to grab my mask and snorkel and have a look for myself. After all, my male brain reasoned, it was only thirty feet down and, since no one was around I thought, “Why dig out a swimsuit? Just strip and dive in you old fool.”
I felt like a kid. I had forgotten how much fun skinny-dipping is. Then, hyperventilating, I took a huge breath and raced down the anchor-line. Down, down, down I swam. About the time the bottom popped into view I began to wonder if I would make it back to the surface. At the same time I noticed the anchor and twenty feet of chain were skipping across the bottom as merrily as could be. Horrified, I realized the anchor wasn’t set at all! My boat was escaping!I swam to the top as fast as I could and broke the surface just in time to see the Wanda Sue headed, on her own, to the far side of the lake and, to add insult to injury, the wind was flipping my clothes over the side one piece at a time: my shirt, my pants, and my skivvies.

In a moment of amazing clarity, I could see tomorrow’s headlines: “Middle-Aged Fool Found Floating Naked in Lake Pleasant!” Red-faced, I finally caught up to the Wanda Sue, a ball of laundry tucked under my arm. I climbed aboard to the applause of previously un-noticed picnickers on the point. I took a bow, hauled in my anchor line, and motored home remembering my brother’s favorite adage, “Wisdom comes from experience and experience comes from lack of wisdom.”

Bio:

It’s not easy being a sailor in Phoenix, but there are some wonderful lakes and the Sea of Cortez is just across the Mexican border to the south and the California coast is to the west. John became a ‘trailer sailor.’ San Carlos, Mexico has to be the best-kept secret in North American sailing. The winds are wonderful, the anchorages charming and the Mexican people are so friendly,” McKeel reports. When he’s not sailing, John works as a technical writer and as a broadcaster for KJZZ, National Public Radio, in Phoenix.