the tow of shame

[xrx1113]

i rebuilt a sunfish type boat for my daughter and my son and i decided today was the day to take it out for its first trip and make shure we have everything just right. well its a beautiful day we head to the sanabell causway and i see the flags on the way there blowing south to north. we get to the causway and i tell my son i dont understand why there arn't any wind surfers on the water and no other little sail boats either. Oh well lets get her set up . we get her together in a few minuts all looks good . we pull her into about chest deep water and fip her a few times to practice righting , no problems at all so off we go.We are on the north side of the causway nice breese south to north, but not too much were moving ,good learning weather i think , perfect day, we go out a few hundred yards then turn and head back to the beach ;i see i forgot to put the tiller under the travler ups no big deal we get back to where we started and i fix the rudder and were off again .now i know we can go out and get back to the beach so i head off to fishermans island no big deal until i try and turn around ;boat goes into irons if you can call it that with what is now so little wind but we are going backwards!! ok huston we have a problem, we are moving backwards and drifting towards the west side of the island crap not good ,dont want to get stuck against it so i turn us away from the island and sail away but i cant get us going towards the beach the wind is comming directly from the beach but the tides comming in (never even crossed my mind the tide was going to be an issue)and there isnt enough wind to fight it ,again crap !only 1 watter bottle no food and i have my 10 year old with me ok i cant wait 4 hours and hope i can work this out, so i do it. there are lots of guys fishing around us i wave and the closest one comes over, i ask for a tow back to the beach he asks if i have a tow rope ready i do and toss it over he tells me i need a boat with a motor and giggles, tows us back to the beach. as we are untieing i tell him the story he laughs again and saies well did you learn anything i said yep," if i dont see the windsurfers im on the wrong side of the causway lol."

[SEMIJim]

Eh, don't feel bad. First time out on our new-to-us sailboat, me at the helm, we come too close to in island in the middle of a lagoon that's in the transit from canal, to creek, to lake, and I run us aground. Not hard. Just soft sand and mud. A little stink-boat hauls us off. Next time out, same place, The Admiral at the helm. We think we're far enough off the island. Nope. Did it again. This time two rubber dinghies push us off.

I won't even go into this season's embarrassing, and one of them expensive, screw-ups with the new-to-us little stink-boat.

Jim