Home Again

There are times that I complain bitterly about my job, and the people that I work with, however, in reality I am very fortunate with my employment. For example, approximately 3 weeks ago I received a telephone call from one of my partners telling me that he had an open berth on a Caribbean sailing trip he had organized, and he asked if I knew anyone who was interested. When I told my other partner about this he quickly started to encourage me to go on the trip. About 2 weeks latter a boat became my home for 8 days. I shared this boat with 7 other people, 3 of whom are legally blind. Everyone had some sailing experience, except for me. Our captain (one of my partners) and the 3 legally blind people had the most sailing experience. This was not a trip that allowed me to simply lie on the deck and soak in the sun, no, I had to act as a sighted guide (1 time), man the helm (not often though), raise the jib (1 time, no 2 times on the same day), hook mooring balls (7 (?) times), release the boat from the mooring balls, and captain the dinghy (1 time). Do you think I am complaining about this? If so, you are wrong, I loved every minute of it. I asked for the chance to raise the jib (fortunately I had a male crew member to assist me each time, or the the jib would never go up), I wanted to be useful, when the partner from my firm told me that I was a "deck queen" the first day, I was a bit offended, I did not want to simply be decoration on the trip, and I don't think that I was. I have returned to MA with a small callus on my right hand, and with some new bruises on my legs.

We sailed around the British Virgin Islands, starting on Tortola, and visiting Virgin Gorda, Peter Island, Cooper Island, Norman Island, and Guana Island. I had one sleepless night watching the anchor to make sure that it did not slip enough to let us hit the boats near us. I returned to Boston with a deep tan (for me anyway, for a friend of mine, and for my mother, it is still a sickly pallor (I am ghost white ordinarily)). I had Pain Killers (in case you don't know a rum drink) at approximately 4 of the places we stopped. I did a fair amount of drinking on the boat too, but that seems to be the Caribbean way.

I swam, snorkeled, visited tropical resorts, read a book, and even found time to knit. My fellow crew members quickly got used to hearing the phrase "Let me just finish this row first" (Wenders if you are reading this, sound familiar?). Since this is a knitting blog, I will let you know that my vacation knitting project was the Forest Path Stole, an entrelac lace shawl from an old IK issue. It is being knit with the Zephyr yarn that K sent to me before I went away. I finished about 2 1/2 tiers of the stole while I was on vacation.

Would I do this again? To quote Mr. Big from Sex in the City, absof*inglutely. The trip was fabulous. I had a much better time sailing around then I did on a cruise that I took a few years ago, there was ALOT less rigidity on this trip than there was on my cruise. This may have been one of my most favorite vacations, and I have taken a number of vacations that I loved (London with K in the last year of law school, camping alone near Acadia, many trips to San Diego...) I plan on signing up for Community Boating this summer to learn more about how to sail, and I hope to stay in contact with my fellow crew members (btw, I may end up trying to teach one of the blind sailors how to knit).

Warning to my fellow N.End knitters, I will be talking your ears off on Wednesday about this trip.

Finally, thanks to our guest blogger! Since I didn't see a post from you today, I thought I would step in and do my own post. I hope that you will continue to feel free to post even when both K and I are around, I really enjoy seeing what you are working on!