Conquering

As soon as I got done with my blog post yesterday I thought about how nervous I had been about sailing since I have so many mishaps.  I realized that I was letting my fear of failure keep me in the harbor on a day that could turn out to be a beautiful day.  I didn't want to let my anxiety keep me from doing something I love.  I didn't want to crash into the pier again, but I wasn't gonna sit on land if I could possibly be out on the water.
After I left the library I drove straight to the marina, threw off the mooring lines, flipped my boat around, raised the main, and headed out.  No collisions, no close calls.  I didn't even really have to tack to get out of the harbor.  Getting out is the hard part, and once that was out of the way it was easy.  I called Dani so she could come sailing after all; but since I told her the weather was going to be too bad, she had already made other plans.  I sailed off alone.
The wind was pretty strong, coming out of the south, and it took me a couple minutes to set the jib, but once both sails were up I was cruising along at a pretty good pace just enjoying life.  My brother, Spencer, called to see if he and his friend, Seth, could come sailing too. I could see a few people starting to get out their paddle boards and surf boards.  There were pretty good waves for once, usually the lake doesn't kick up cresting waves close to shore.  I dropped anchor just outside of the heavy impact zone for the waves and began to get the dinghy ready.  Aequitas was still jumping up and down quite a bit on the waves so getting into the little 8 foot boat was somewhat challenging.  I surfed on a couple waves as I got closer to shore, but just as I was about to get out and walk the rest of the way a huge wave broke over the stern and filled the dinghy halfway with water and sand.
Getting in was the easy part.  I almost got swamped with just me in the boat.  Now we were cramming two more people in and trying to fight against the waves.  It was a pretty hairy situation, but very fun.  We had to lean one way to avoid the waves, and then counter balance to keep water from lapping up over the gunwales.  I had to push the boat past the breakers before I could climb up and start rowing.  In the end we had a glorious sail and I'm really glad I went.
A life lived in fear is a life half lived.