pumpkins to carve

Tuesday evening I convinced Sam we needed to carve pumpkins. What I really did was scoop out 4 pumpkins and had them waiting for him with carving tools when he got home. So he was actually ambushed into carving pumpkins though I am sure he had been expecting it. He knows Halloween is my favorite holiday so he has learned to go along with it.

Getting him to wear a costume every year, especially a new costume, took a bit of convincing but he eventually bought in or I just wore him down. He still draws the line at wearing a mask and I haven't been able to convince him otherwise. Sam is usually a good sport though and goes along with my crazy ideas. One year I even convinced him to play Kermit to my Piggy though he still complains about that year. I think it was just that his frog costume wasn't quite a good as my Miss Piggy.

We had some friends over to carve pumpkins but when you are the host it is a bit more challenging to carve your own pumpkin so I decided we still needed to get in on the fun.

Sam got in the spirit and started carving. I mean really if your pumpkin is already scooped out there is no excuse as the messy part is done. After he got done I reminded him that he still had 1 more to carve. He wasn't interested as the next one wasn't cleaned out and ready to go he said. Well on his second pumpkin I had actually made the hole in the bottom instead of the top of the pumpkin. Since what he thought was a really good excuse wasn't valid any longer he gave in and started on number 2.

4 carved pumpkins later between us I let him off the hook though I made him pose with his pumpkin. You can tell from his pic he isn't nearly as enthusiastic as I was.

I mentioned that the pumpkin carving contest this year during our yacht club Halloween cruise had to be completed on Saturday so our few extra pumpkins would come in handy, especially now that we had some practice. No go on that idea. While pumpkin carving is fine in our house he drew the line at the boat. Seems pumpkin carving isn't a nautical activity. After cleaning up the table and floor and finding pumpkin seed all over I may have to agree with him on this one. Though I am going to bring a couple with me but I will be loading the car after he has already left for work.

a birthday cruise

So I must be getting into this whole sailing thing since for my birthday weekend I was the one who suggested taking our boat over to Poulsbo. Now if it had been Sam's birthday weekend and choice we most likely would have ventured further but I was going for the shorter trip since I am still about the destination and not the journey. Sam is working on me still but so far the destination still outweighs the journey by far.

I blamed the fact that it was getting dark much earlier and if we left Friday after work we wouldn't get very far before dark set it. I am not much for arriving in the dark (hence part of the reason we haven't made any offshore trips) so this was my perfect excuse to just go a few hours away.

We had a 3 day weekend and the weather on Saturday was beautiful. Sunday was sunny for the morning but by the afternoon the wind had started to pick up. Monday it had really started to become quite windy. We went for a run (using this term loosely as always) and then as we were walking back to the boat decided maybe listening to the weather forecast was in order.

We should have tuned in a bit earlier. Lesson learned - listen to the weather forecast each day. It seems we learn something new every time our boat leaves the dock. A storm was coming in and it was only going to get windier as the late morning and afternoon progressed. Initially we thought about staying the night but decided we weren't too far from home and it couldn't really be that bad.

Leaving the dock turned out to be one of the most challenging parts. We were in a slip almost 10 feet smaller than our boat so we didn't have the best stern line tied. As the wind picked up it was blowing our bow directly into the dock. If we undid any of the 4 lines we would be blown forward quickly. I decided I didn't want to be the only deckhand so I went down the dock in search of help.

It must be a rule of the sea that help is easily accessible and available only when it is sunny with no wind. Coming in or departing during those times offer plenty of help but when you really want some there anyone around, probably because they listened to the weather forecast and departed a bit earlier or are hunkered down inside. I found a couple willing to help out and I dragged them down.

After much discussion and strategic planning a plan was decided upon and luckily it was well executed. A few extra hands in this instance prevented a visit to the boatyard for some cosmetic painting. I won't say it wasn't a bit close there for a few seconds but we left the dock in 1 piece and didn't take any of the boat next to us with us.

Now I have always maintained if you are in a harbor or protected area and there are whitecaps or serious chop on the water one should stay put. Of course I remembered this rule after we had left the dock and after that experience I wasn't super anxious to head back to the dock we had just departed.

The good news is that for a portion of the journey back the wind was pushing us along so I am sure we saved on our diesel bill and picked up some speed. After turning the corner though this was no longer the case. Sam was pretty glad we had our davits reinforced. While I wasn't as sure when I saw the initial bill I came around to his way of thinking a short time into our trip. The dinghy held firm and the davits didn't do any creaking or vibrating that would make me turn up the music.

Actually while the waves were pretty large - some good sized ones had built up from the wind the trip back was better than I had envisioned. Guess the good thing about scarier boat trips is that it puts it all in perspective. Our boat handled well and we were never super uncomfortable or as I like to put it sea scared. Sam did tell me that he had no desire to put up the sails as it was a bit windy even for him. Glad to know that he has his limits on sailing as well. Those motors are pretty handy things as we learned this summer.

So while taking a cruise in windy and rough seas might not have been my perfect birthday outing I still had a good birthday - though I contribute most of that to a new purse, sushi, and glassybabies. Of course the day off helped since in all honesty I can't say I would have rather been at the office.