BRING THAT BRAND NEW
CATALINA 28 HOME!
I know, I know, it isn’t even Tuesday! It appears cross-country skiing was a bit much for our Prairie Girl…. Landing on her tailbone, not only caused great tenderness (specifically, “a pain in the butt”), but the whiplash from landing so hard, brought on 5 days of tension headaches due to the impact on her neck muscles…. SHEESH….
The last post Prairie Girl wrote announced the purchase (scheming) husband made of a brand new Catalina 28 Mark 11 Anniversary Edition on their anniversary. (Blog Archives, Dec. 13, 2016) It was purchased in Portland, Oregon in early spring, and husband then had to figure out how to get it home to Thunderbird Marina in West Van.
A CAPTAIN was hired to sail their DREAM BOAT down the Columbia River from Portland to the coast and up to Bellingham. The weather was stormy and it meant the CAPTAIN and his crew were holed up for a few days, before making their way along the coastline in rocking and rolling open seas. What should have taken them a couple of days, ended up taking a week! Husband kept in constant communication, frantically awaiting the call that their DREAM BOAT had arrived in Bellingham in one piece. He met them and took care of the import paperwork and costly duty. Husband and his friend, then sailed it to Point Robert’s Marina until the working duo could find a day off together and the weather was more stable.
Finally the “perfect day” arrived for husband and Prairie Girl to retrieve their new boat and make their first sail home. And what a day! The SEA GODS were blessing their crossing. (Or so they thought…) Of course Prairie Girl was posed up on one of the railing seats – basking in the sunshine, soaking in the thrill of being on the water in something so completely new. (Truly an exhilarating experience!) Can’t you just picture Prairie Girl’s LOTTO MAX daydream playing out in her head? Oh yeah…. Suddenly she was snapped out of her reverie as a pod of whales were spotted off their port side. What a gift! This grabbed husband’s attention, as well, and he cranked the wheel (so novel, after having a tiller) towards the pod for a closer view. What was such a lovely delight, suddenly became a bit frantic as the whales decided to venture closer towards us, simultaneously. The wheel was immediately yanked in the opposite direction as the friendly whales moved in closer to them and their DREAM BOAT! OMG!
No sooner had they escaped the overly sociable whales, than husband happened to glance down at his depth meter… loving all his new instrumentation! Without warning, they were once again thrown into panic mode, as husband questioned how they could possibly be in 7 feet of water! They were just about to be hung up on the sand/mud flats from the Fraser River deposits! With all the distraction of “friendly whales”, husband hadn’t been keeping close attention to his GPS. Well, didn’t THEY do a HAIL MARY (…NOT even Catholics), when the depth meter started ascending! 
Realistically, Prairie Girl and husband need to be given a little slack…. Understandably, they were totally giddy about being out on the water in their new DREAM BOAT, so they might not have been functioning on full throttle that day. Fortunately, the new boat made it safely into its Thunderbird Marina slip without a scrape! And Prairie Girl and husband had some hearty laughs at themselves over their memorable first adventure on their DREAM BOAT.
