The Day That Changed My Life

Today was the day. I would be slipping through that invisible barrier from the shore to the sea. I would step into the legendary, living postcard that is San Francisco Bay. I was going sailing for the first time.

Growing up, I had always regarded sailboats with suspicion, if I noticed them at all. With all their ropes and tiny cabins and slowness, they made no sense to me. I couldn’t help but compare them to the powerboats I knew as a youth. Why work so hard to go so slow? Who would want to be on a boat that was tilting over as I had seen them do? Was that even safe? What on earth was the point?

Many years later, in San Francisco, I would start to find out. I had stood with the tourists on the San Francisco waterfront, watching the sailboats slice through the biting summer winds. I was beginning to regard sailboats differently. They seemed to handle wind and waves entirely differently than their comparably sized powered cousins, with much more grace. They seemed to thrive in it.

Watching them round Alcatraz and pass through the Golden Gate, it seemed a terribly privileged thing, to be out there. No longer merely looking out at that postcard scenery, but to be in it. It must be virtually impossible, astronomically expensive; otherwise, why wouldn’t everyone be out there?

Then it happened in 2009, as casually as an invite to coffee, a coworker friend invited me for a sail on his little boat out of Sausalito. I leaped at the chance. I felt I might never have this opportunity again.

Arriving at the boat in Sausalito, I took it in. There was nothing fancy about it; it looked like any other sailboat, as far as I could tell. No fancy golden wood trim, plenty of nicks and chips in the gel coat. The canvas faded and soft, sun-sapped ropes crisscrossed the deck. This boat had seen many years on the water.

It smelled just like a boat when I went below. Musty plus the faint smell of diesel. There were sort of couches on which to sit, settees as I would learn to call them, the tired cushions as old as the boat herself, now well into her 30’s. There was a little kitchen with a simple sink and stove. A tiny bathroom further forward, and still forward of that, a triangular-shaped bed fit into the pointy forward end. My gears were starting to turn.

A backpacker by nature, I’ve always loved small, efficient spaces — everything I need in a clean and orderly arrangement. Constrained, focused. Airplane seats with their tray tables still do it for me. Even better that I get to travel at the same time. Now I was taking in this little cabin on the water, with its kitchen, bathroom, living room, and bedroom, each within arm’s reach of the other. And it can travel along using nothing more than the wind? My gears were whirring like a hummingbird.

We departed from the slip in Sausalito and motored toward San Francisco Bay. A few minutes later, Steve announced it was time to hoist sail and guided me through the process. A few moments after that and he cut the engine. Oh goodness, that silence.

Suddenly boat heeled over under the pressure of that famous wind and surged forward. We rounded a point of land, and there it was, the Golden Gate Bridge looming almost directly overhead. My god, what percentage of people ever get this view of such an icon? To port was Alcatraz and the San Francisco skyline. So much history, so much lore. And to starboard, just under that bridge, the whole rest of the world. What if we just went that way? What was stopping us? What adventures awaited us out there?

I knew then what I had to do.

To be continued in Part 2