The boat is called the Cherokee. It's a 1968 homebuilt trimaran sailboat. I didn't take any pictures cause my water proof camera wasn't waterproof. The boat is owned by 3 less than silent partners and a few silent ones, that aren't so silent. The original three, Paul, TC and John spent 3 years sailing around out here. By "Out here" I mean Indonesia, Hawaii, the Marshall Islands, and a few others I can't recall. Paul is leaving tomorrow so it was his "PCS" ing party. I forget what the acronym means, but he's leaving Kwaj. I just met him about a month ago. He showed up to Frisbee. He kind of reminds me of Robert Redford, but he's maybe 5 years older than I, but in good shape 'cause he more than kept up playing Frisbee. One other thing I love about Ultimate is that it completely gives you great insight into the quality of a person. Maybe all group sports are like that, I don't really know. Its just, you can tell a lot about a person by their sportsmanship, which is why I miss my friends that I played with back home. All incredibly great people to be around. Paul and TC show that same great sportsmanship.
So after last Friday's Ultimate Game, where Paul drank a few beers at the field with us, then later showed up at the Vets Hall, which James and I stopped by on the way back to the Shire. He told us "You guys are coming sailing with me next Tuesday, it will be a sunset cruise". Jordan was standing there when he invited us and he told Paul "Stop inviting Dudes, you need to invite some chicks". So I kind of assumed there would be 10 or 12 dudes.
I ran to the store right after work to get a bottle of wine. On my way I passed the marina where I saw Paul and someone getting in the dingy to go get Cherokee. At the store, at least 3 different people asked me something about "going out on the Cherokee". I get to the small boat marina (its for boats under a hundred feet), and there's a few people there, like 12. Monica and Kacie, Gail and ........... I keep looking and there's quite a few people there. The small boat marina is closed during the week. Closed as far as renting a boat, which is the only reason anyone might go there. So I run out and help them dock Cherokee. In the next half hour, 33 people go on board. 33 people!! 33 really great people. Ok so I only knew 25 of them, but still. Older people (a few near 70) and mostly younger (than me) people. So we get motoring out of the harbor, and I see Dan (from Alaska married to Karen both around 37) starting to undo the sails. When I had seen Cherokee out in the lagoon a few times, Paul was just motoring to where they were going, no sails. Tonight, the sails were coming out! Its just cooler with sails. After he did his kind of "welcome aboard and safety speech" he said that we have to pick someone up at "North Point", which is just the north end of Kwaj. I kind of wondered how that was all going to work out. We got up there, and he asked for an adventurous volunteer. I didn't really know what the adventure was. I got in the dingy that we were dragging behind, and went and picked up Liz who was swimming out about a quarter mile away, and closer to the reef than you would want to take a big boat. Liz is from Australia. She's a few inches shorter than me, and has dread locks and piercings and tattoos. I've seen her around, and talked to her a little bit, but not enough to give her much confidence with me going towards her with the ten horsepower dingy. She had all rights to have no confidence in me cause I had never run one of those little outboard motors. I also had never run one attached to a little teeny boat like that with way too much water in it that brought the bow up too high to see what was in front of it. Oh and the lagoon had 2 foot waves in it. I thought about backing out of my volunteering, but I silently talked myself into it, after staring at the engine long enough. It took me a minute or two to figure out how to put the motor down, and then to get it running. I was secretly worried about making a complete ass out of myself with all those people watching. I got it started and then headed to shore. After a minute or two of heading straight in I saw the flat water that marked the reef, and the end of it. I wondered if those watching me thought I would just run the little dingy up on the reef. I ran it out in front of her about ten feet shut the motor off and she managed to pull herself onboard and we headed back to the boat.
We sailed out past the rental boat ("b" boat) range (6 miles) inside the lagoon and kept going another 3 miles. It rained most of the time on the way out. No one really cared. Some were sheltered from some of the rain, some just sat there and got wet. Everyone just talked and had a great time. James and I later talked about how easy it would be to lose someone overboard on a cruise like that. Even if you managed to realize they were missing, going back to find them in the dark would be extremely tough. No one fell overboard, and everyone had a great time, especially me.
Here's a pic James took after I helped them dock the boat....and another terrible one out at sail
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