Pelagic Sails

Spring has made it to Tassie.  Today we observed the change of season by taking Pelagic out for a daysail.  What with our second child being born and all, it's been something like six months since we were sailing.


The experience was a bit nostalgic - Pelagic, after all, was our home for more than half of Elias' life, and therefore for more than half of our life as a family.  The top pic is of Elias burrowed into a duvet and deep into his afternoon nap on the outboard side of the forward bunk, his old bed and the scene of hundreds of good-night books and songs in his past.


We had a great sail.  Hobart has one of the greatest settings for sailing of any city I have seen.  We glided along, pointing out penguins to each other, and looking up at the dwindling patches of slush on Mt. Wellington.


Alisa, Elias and I all felt the old magic coming back.  Ah, Alisa and I both thought, this is why we're so keen to be living aboard again.  And we gave Eric the first lesson for sailors who begin as infants - the joys of playing with lines (third pic).


And we had a quick taste of what it might be like to sail full-time with two little people on board instead of one.  We didn't have a crib rigged up where we could leave Eric to sleep soundly on either tack, and, denied the chance to lie down when he really wanted it, he cried and cried, and we didn't leave the dock until he was finally asleep.  Meanwhile Elias was taking a bit of our attention, and our two-hour sail was only accomplished after about four hours of preparation.


Alisa and I agree that for all our bold schemes for sailing from New Zealand to the fabled Austral Islands, and counting seabirds in the less-visited of the Cook Islands, we will in fact be starting off on some very slow cruising, some very no-goal adventuring, when we do move aboard the next boat.