Tuesday, October 9, 2007

Sailing in the harbor!


Sept.21 - My roommates have a friend, Matt (in the green shirt), who is a member of MIT's sailing club and has access to the school's 37ft boat. Today I was invited to go sail the harbor with them. Little did they know, I have never been on a sailboat. As depicted in the above picture, when we boarded there were blue skies and the day was absolutely beautiful. We laughed and ate snacks and made our way out of the harbor. Matt asked me if I wanted to steer and I replied that I felt a little uncomfortable since this was my first time sailing. You would have thought that I said there was no such thing as Santa Clause! No one could believe that I had never sailed before so it was the new goal to teach me everything about sailing.

Now don't worry - I know you are looking at little me sail the big ship and are panicking slightly, but please note the professional standing closely nearby in case he needed to take over. I was doing a fantastic job if I do say so myself, when I saw this on the horizon and naively asked Matt what it was. He very politely and quickly took over steering the ship and the next thing we knew we were in this! I could not believe how quickly the fog had rolled in and it really seemed like it came out of nowhere. The temperature quickly dropped and we followed Matt’s orders to try and get us back to the harbor. Maps were pulled out and we literally had to navigate our way. I’m not going to lie, it was scary. There are large ferries traveling at high speeds and as you can see our visibility was limited. We had fun however and had amazing views of the city. In the above picture you can see the top of the skyscrapers peeking up over the fog. It took us ‘til nightfall to return, but the feeling in the air and the view of the city was priceless. So I survived my first sailing adventure and can’t wait for my next one!