Belle

Belle was my father's sailboat. We brought her to Florida when he died and sailed her for 18 years. When I realized we had not sailed her in two years, I felt it was time to let someone else sail take her out on the water. I posted an ad on Boat Trader a week and a half ago. The first call seemed hopeful but he decided she was too small. The second inquiry was mostly concerned with trailering her with a small car. While he was mulling it over, the third call led to a sale over the phone. Early this morning I sent more detailed photos, and by mid-morning I had a down payment and arrangements for a pick up in three weeks. 

Our favorite place for boating, Cedar Keys, is not particularly easy for sailing. The way the prevailing winds, keys, channels, currents, sand bars, and oyster bars are laid out meant that we usually took down the sail and motored back to the dock. Still we had many happy days of sailing with her, and I always thought of my father's dream of being sailed around with his children crewing the boat. It was a reasonable enough dream, except that the physics of sailing had me absolutely stumped and I'm not much of a sailer. So Dad and I only had one sailing adventure together on Belle. My husband is the one who deserves credit for keeping her in repair and understanding how she runs. 

At first we seemed to have all the bad luck in the world. We put a lot of time into new sails, rigging, mast, motor mount... too many things to recount. After a couple of years we realized we had made an egregious error. She had never been properly renamed. So we bought champagne and put her in the water in a lake, at a friend's dock. We loaded her up with friends and christened her properly. After that, the winds and waters knew her again and things went much more smoothly. 

Belle was perfect for turtle spotting at Cedar Keys. My favorite place was up on the bow, wedged on one side of the jib. Dolphins loved to run in front of her if she was going fast enough. She wasn't the best for fishing, with all the rigging and shrouds, but the quiet of a sailboat is like no other quiet. 

One of my most cherished possessions is a pair of wind tells that my husband gave me. I considered keeping them, to help me figure out which way the wind is blowing when conditions are puzzling. Instead I will be sending them along with Belle. If I haven't learned how to read the wind by now on my own, with my father's and husband's guidance, the little flags won't reveal anything I can't calculate with some hard thinking.