From the beginning, we knew that there will be times when things don’t go as smoothly as planned, and that those would be the times when we would learn the most. Well, this weekend was one such situation.

On Saturday, we decided that it was another perfect day to go out sailing. We headed out, and encountered what was probably the biggest water that we have been on thus far. We were comfortable with the size of the waves, but Lenny was not impressed. He spent the entire afternoon giving us reproachful looks from the floor of the cock pit, and couldn’t seem to figure out why on earth we were doing this to him.

Things were going fairly well, until Alex asked me to go down below and look something up online. Now, I don’t get carsick (a good thing, given our recent ten day road trip), but the moment I try to read in a car I get nauseous. I should have inferred the consequences of reading in rough water, but wasn’t thinking. In no time at all, I was feeling unwell. I went up on deck, but it was too late and ended up getting quite ill. This wouldn’t have been any big deal, even seasoned sailors get seasick from time to time. Of course, for us, it’s never just one thing to deal with. At the exact same moment that I was being sick, Alex misjudged a turn and the wind caught the sail in the wrong way. Suddenly, a piece of our rigging broke, and the boom was swinging freely (not a good situation, and not one that I could stop to take a picture of).

At that moment, things could have gone horribly wrong – a swinging boom is able to kill or seriously hurt a person. To our merit, we were able to pull it together quickly and work well as a team. My seasickness didn’t matter, it was now my responsibility to steer the boat while Alex brought the sail down. If I messed this up, the wind could catch the boom and knock him into the water, or worse. We quickly brought the sail down and tied the boom so that it couldn’t swing freely, then fired up the motor and headed home safely.

The piece of rigging that broke

On a brighter note, we did learn how to successful fish for crabs over the weekend! Saturday night after our eventful sail, we managed to catch a single crab. We were beyond excited, and were looking forward to having him (you can only keep the males) for dinner the next day (well, maybe just an appetizer). The next morning when Alex woke up we had another, but it was a female so he released her. The following time we checked the trap, we had three more, and all day we were catching them until we maxed out our daily quota.

A successful haul!

We ended up eating dungeness crab for breakfast, lunch and dinner, they were so amazing.

Breakfast! Our first ever crabs!

Tonight we are about to sit down to another meal of fresh crab, and can’t help but feel that we really are living the dream, and even when things go wrong, we are still able to make the most of them. Besides, let’s be honest… everything seems better when you are enjoying a meal that has gone from the ocean to your table in under 15 minutes!