During our past trips, I think we tended to wait for more perfect sailing conditions before moving on to the next town. I'm not sure why but I don't think we pushed ourselves or our skills too hard by choice. This is very odd because as its something both Brady and myself like to do! We were novice and very prudent. We see this not as a bad thing, but just a thing. Maybe it was because we both knew in the back of our minds that we would have to get ourselves out of trouble. Or that we didn't and still don't want to rely on other people to get us out of sticky situations. Not because we are afraid to ask for help but we both see it as we willingly put ourselves into this situation, whatever 'this situation' may be, we should have to get ourselves out.
Looking back I'm not sure why we didn't push ourselves more. It seems that this time around, now that we have a destination, I think that there is a little fire under our butts pushing us a little harder than our past years. My "babe!" (aka my 'oh shit') alarm doesn't go off now until we are healed 25 degrees or greater. This is a great improvement from the 15 degrees my alarm would go off at about 2 years ago! The lets us sail the boat much faster. I also don't freak out as easy when we come into odd or emergent situations. We handle the situation with more confidence and level headedness and this I'm sure helps with my overall confidence in my sailing skills.
We both are fully aware that this is most likely the last time we will be sailing in this beautiful lake and we want to experience all of the wonderful towns and things we were hoping to experience and see when we first bought Further and thought that we would be racing in the Mac the second year we owned the boat. Hahaha! I don't think the fire is the only reason, I also think that our overall sailing skills and confidence is different. It has to be.
We are on our way to sail in the ocean. Yes, people say that Lake Michigan has some of the closest conditions comparable to sailing in the sea but we don't know that. We don't know what to expect. As of right now we can only go by what we have learned from other people who have sailed out along the ocean coast before. On the lake you may see a freighter once a day and there aren't a whole lot of buoys and markers of hazards in the water to look out for. After talking to people and reading books and blogs of people who sail on the ocean quite frequently they have put a little fear in us. As it should be. We will come out into the ocean in New York City and those shipping lanes, traffic, etc. aren't something to joke around about. As we will move further north along the coast there will be more ledges, shoals, etc to watch for as well.
So, maybe we are a lot more confident in our skills here on the lake because we aren't novices in this area anymore. However we know that we will be novices in just a couple of short weeks once we hit the waters out east. The unknowing reason why we still get nervous in the morning before leaving or just before coming to the dock. We aren't nervous about what we are currently doing, the relatively comfortable similar situations we have been in over the past few years, but we are nervous at all of the unknowns that lie ahead further along our journey.
Looking back I'm not sure why we didn't push ourselves more. It seems that this time around, now that we have a destination, I think that there is a little fire under our butts pushing us a little harder than our past years. My "babe!" (aka my 'oh shit') alarm doesn't go off now until we are healed 25 degrees or greater. This is a great improvement from the 15 degrees my alarm would go off at about 2 years ago! The lets us sail the boat much faster. I also don't freak out as easy when we come into odd or emergent situations. We handle the situation with more confidence and level headedness and this I'm sure helps with my overall confidence in my sailing skills.
We both are fully aware that this is most likely the last time we will be sailing in this beautiful lake and we want to experience all of the wonderful towns and things we were hoping to experience and see when we first bought Further and thought that we would be racing in the Mac the second year we owned the boat. Hahaha! I don't think the fire is the only reason, I also think that our overall sailing skills and confidence is different. It has to be.
We are on our way to sail in the ocean. Yes, people say that Lake Michigan has some of the closest conditions comparable to sailing in the sea but we don't know that. We don't know what to expect. As of right now we can only go by what we have learned from other people who have sailed out along the ocean coast before. On the lake you may see a freighter once a day and there aren't a whole lot of buoys and markers of hazards in the water to look out for. After talking to people and reading books and blogs of people who sail on the ocean quite frequently they have put a little fear in us. As it should be. We will come out into the ocean in New York City and those shipping lanes, traffic, etc. aren't something to joke around about. As we will move further north along the coast there will be more ledges, shoals, etc to watch for as well.
So, maybe we are a lot more confident in our skills here on the lake because we aren't novices in this area anymore. However we know that we will be novices in just a couple of short weeks once we hit the waters out east. The unknowing reason why we still get nervous in the morning before leaving or just before coming to the dock. We aren't nervous about what we are currently doing, the relatively comfortable similar situations we have been in over the past few years, but we are nervous at all of the unknowns that lie ahead further along our journey.
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