It's Not Only May, It's Opening Day!
And...a boatyard is not as fun as being out on the water, but it is exciting.
For those of you who are not sailors, or who don’t know about sailing clubs and yacht clubs, here’s the deal…Opening Day is traditionally the first day of sailing in the new season. This is, of course, based on places with seriously cold and icy winter seasons, like they have back East, where yacht clubs began, long ago. (If you are asking yourself what the oldest yacht club in the United States is, it’s the New York Yacht Club, established in 1844—the not too far off Royal Nova Scotia Yacht Squadron of Halifax, Nova Scotia, came along just a bit earlier, in 1837.)
So, Opening Day is a big deal at yacht clubs, where people clean up their vessels that have been ignored for many months and maybe run up a few festive burgees on the flag halyard. Then they get decked out in their finest sailing togs—not what we actually sail in!—and sip a cocktail and watch other people yacht, or just sit and eat and think about sailing. Our old club in San Diego, Southwestern YC, has Closing Day the night before Opening Day, because obviously there’s no actual too-cold-and-windy-to-sail season in Southern California. Here’s a cool video about their big 96th Opening Day a few years back, shot by our old friend Don Freeman. Check it out!
Things are different up here, since many people sail year ‘round in Puget Sound and the nearby San Juan Islands, but most local clubs still celebrate “opening” the sailing season sometime in the first week of May. Seattle Yacht Club (est. 1892) will hold their Opening Day festivities tomorrow, May the Fourth, aka Star Wars Day. And our club, The Port Townsend Yacht Club, is holding their Opening Day Dinner tonight. That is great for me in quite a few ways—one, the dinner will be hosted by the club’s past commodores, and the two we have met so far are really great guys (one is Darren O’Brien of The Boat Geeks podcast which I appeared on). Two, it’s being held at the PTYC clubhouse which is quite near the boatyard. And three, since the boat is now up on stands in the aforementioned boatyard, it’s one night I don’t have to cook dinner!
I’ve included a couple of photos of Watchfire being hauled out and also showing how the boat looks now up on stands. It is always an adventure to haul your boat out of the water; it is nerve wracking and tense from dawn to dusk on that first day. Suffice to say, I am never too happy when my boat is hanging from straps or perched up on stands and blocks of wood instead of sitting comfortably in the water where it belongs. But the boatyard here (Boat Haven) is super professional and our 35-foot sailboat is probably what they consider a tiny boat, compared to the many 100 to 300 ton fishing boats and small cruise ships that they haul out here on a daily basis. Of course, they understand that our boat is not just our home but our baby as well, so they take great care to set it down very gently and block it securely.
The funniest part to me is psychological—the first time I climb up the tall metal stairs onto the boat, I am petrified; once up on deck, I teeter around like someone failing a sobriety test. All I can see is the hard ground far below my feet, and I find myself tip-toeing gently, as if the boat can feel my weight and will shift under my feet. After a while I relax and start to forget about the odd setup, and after a day or two, I’m scampering around up on the deck without a care in the world. Of course, being in the boatyard makes everything a bit more difficult, like hauling water to fill the water tank, instead of simply turning on the hose at the dock, and lowering heavy things—like the water jugs—with a long length of rope down to the ground.
But my work days pretty much stay the same. I sit at my computer and work on the book I am currently editing, I read and write emails, make some calls, and yes, try to do a little book marketing every day. I recently took a few books to the Northwest Maritime Center in advance of their newly reopening gift shop and bookstore. They are having their Opening Day in another week, on the 9th of May. That should be fun. And of course I will love knowing my book is for sale in more than three places in town now!
Lastly, I just watched this podcast with long-time author Gayle Carline being interviewed by
on her 21st Century Book Promotion podcast. I learned things and had some laughs. An excellent way to spend 15 minutes of my time.Back with some book reviews next week, and hopefully a link to my newest interview.
hasta pronto!
A fish out of water. How a writer would be without her computer or notebook. But, you wrote this so as Nora Ephron's mom said, "It's all copy." See you next time.
Love your cheerful updates! Congrats on having three booksellers on board!