I took Mr Dwight out on the boat today. It took him a while to get over my house. We then took my car up to the dock. He didn’t like having to sit in the back, as I didn’t want him to have to crawl through, or to displace Mr Pink. Paul took out Linda, one of our neighbors, as she had never been on a sailboat either. When Dwight and I arrived, they were still out. I showed him our dock, but there was no boat. We walked to the end of the dock to see if we could see the boat. There were several sailboats coming in and out, as well as out on the lake. None of the nearby ones were it, and we couldn’t see the disntant ones well. We sat out on the dock for a bit. We discussed calling Paul on his cell phone, but neither of us had such devices (with service anyway), nor did I know Paul’s number. I had planned to write the number down before I left, but forgot. Two dudes came up and talked to us briefly. We contemplated asking them to use their cell phone. We finally decided to. The guy seemed a little reluctant, and made the call himself. We called Uncle Al. Unfortunately, no one was there. We let the guy go. After a bit longer, we decided to try to call Ally using a payphone to get Paul’s number, or to have her call Paul. We went to the car, but I had only one quarter. We then went to the marina, and got the last four quarters from the shop there. There was no visible payphone at the marina, so we went to one that was out at D dock. I checked our dock first, but still no Paul. Dwight handled the calling. After much trouble with trying quarters, he discovered that one could not call long distance with quarters at that payphone. He considered using a credit card, but it would have been quite expensive. At this point, he just wanted to leave. He was somewhat mad, and it was rather hot out. We went back to the car, but I had to leave Paul a note at least. I wrote a simple note that we had left, and we headed back to the dock.
To our luck, Paul had finally made it back in. The boat was all set up and all, but he wasn’t ready to go back out just yet. He suggested we go get some ice and snacks and by then he’d be ready. We went out and bought some rather sweet iced tea, some ice, and Dwight also got some swimming trunks, as by this point he really just wanted to swim rather than boat. We came back, and Paul drove by on his motorcycle. When we got to the dock, Linda told us Paul had gone to McDonald’s for a bite. She invited us to sit next to her under her umbrella. We talked for a bit, and finally Paul arrived. He had bags of food from McDonalds. He started eating and talking to Linda and me. He offered me and Dwight a double cheeseburger. I told Dwight he could have it, but he declined because of his lactose intolerance. I ate it instead. I don’t like ketchup, but it was barely tasteable. Dwight, who had wanted to be home early, really wanted to get going. We went over to the boat and set it up. Finally, Paul made it along to the boat and we headed off.
The winds had been low for Paul earlier, but they weren’t too bad at that point. The sails were both ready to fly up, so we took them up. We sailed out for a bit. As Dwight wanted to get home, we planned a rather short trip. He had originally wanted to get back by 7, but that was pushed back to 8, then 9. Paul told him he really needed a whole day devoted to sailing. We sailed out a bit, then the wind started dying down. At this point, Dwight started feeling a bit sick.
We turned around, and planned to go by the beach area near the docks. Dwight steered for a little bit as Paul told him a bit about sailing. By the time we got near the breaker wall, Dwight just wanted to go in. So we did. We sailed with both sails into the breaker wall area, then ran just the jib into the dock area. This was our first sailing into the dock area. We dropped the jib as we got close and ran just by motor. Paul was at the tiller. As we came in, we seemed to be coming at a rather sharp angle to the dock. The wind was giving Paul a hard time it seemed. As we approached the wooden dock to the side at a 45 or so degree angle, Paul steered to straighten out. This pointed us right at the cement peir part of the dock our dock was attached to. I quickly moved to the very front of the boat to kick off as we approached. I kicked off and one of our neighbors grabbed on from the dock and pushed, but we had enough force that we still ran into the peir and the electrical box just on it. The side of the peir was wood, and when surveying the damage, we had made a small indentation. The electrical box had flexed back a bit, but was quite fine. A small bit of paint was chipped off the bow.
As Dwight had to go and I drove him, Paul took care of closing down the boat. We went off with Dwight still feeling fairly sick. He really wanted to sit in shot gun, as he felt the back seat would make him feel more sick. We moved pinky and he climbed on in. As we took the hour and 15 minute drive home, he urged me to go faster. I tried to draft semis and other vehicles, as I usually do, but they never seem to like it. We made it back to my house at around 8:45, giving him 15 minutes to make the 30 minute drive back to his house. He said he never wanted to go sailing again.