Roads and Water

A great combination. Not at the same time. Keeping an open mind might be the best thought for now. There could be a moment.
The road was glorious. Full of Sun. Warm for shorts and a light short sleeve jersey. It would be the white jersey day. Still bright for the traffic to see. The #1 bike working again after a difficult rear gear problem. The gears all work fine except the 13 tooth. It's shot. Needs to be replaced. No hurry, I'll just use the 12 and 14 tooth gears. I do have a new campy 10 speed rear gear set to replace it with. So off the ride went. #1 bike, #1 set of wheels and me. Down the roads I have come to know very well. Out to Bayview corners and beyond to Andreson and Lone Lake. The road that leads to Saratoga and Langley that goes to Landley road and then to Maxwellton. Then off to French road, Bailey, Cultus road and the climb up Jewet road to Glendale and the turn up Holst road and over to Heggenes hill. All these roads except Bayview are climbs and descents. Hard work all the time. A measured ride. The ride is not done till I get back to the house. There are hills to climb at a pace, not at the red zone. Build my strength not brake it down. The ride I take all the time. The ride that helps keep me alive. The ride that keeps the pain a little more manageable. It turned out to be a 50 miler. I was fast. I was not trying to be fast. It was just the power of not going into the red zone. Not over extending my effort. The result is the body gets stronger. You go faster and burn more calories not working at it so hard. Thought some parts of the ride a little push is good. Just to test the high end out. See if the go go still works for a while. The result is making the turn home and knowing there was another 25 miles in the legs. Maybe more to. These are the good days of summer. The warm days. The days where the temperature is not an issue at all. There are a lot more riders out to. The ones that are never out in winter. We are still all true believers in the road. The prayer of the long road. The riders on their own. Riding the circuit to live another day. Keeping the Reaper a little further back. Make him work for pay check. Make him work hard.
The water. The summer can bring water time. The little sailboat. "Little Siren" needs some time out. Out to make adventures again after who knows how many years on the trailer. She is in a good spot on the bay. There is a good mooring. Sound to the winds that come from the South and the North and from any direction. 50 feet of chain and 2 anchors holds her well with a gentle touch. It was a day to become friends. The day for the first sail. A test sail to check out the systems. To test the captain maybe more than the boat. The winds were a bit brisk by high tide. Just the hint of a white cap. The breeze coming from the North Bayview Corners. I had to drag the dingy a bit farther for the tide was still out a bit. Enough water to get off the huge sand bar of the tidal flats. The row to the boat was good the transfer to the sailboat from the dingy very good. The getting ready a bit nervous. The plan a bit conservative. Head sail only to get the feel of the "Little Siren". Motor out to Double Bluff Point. About 8 miles by water I think. Then turn South, pop the head sail from the roller furling. Sail a running reach to Maxwellton across the bay. It all went so smooth. The boat was so kind. There was so tall chop in the bay. Not waves as much as chop about 8 to 10 feet apart. Well it seemed like that. I was a long way out from the house. Several miles out into the bay. On the edge of Puget Sound. Doing a good pace. Going faster than I thought I would. Though as it was a running direction it felt slow. I did surf a few of the taller bits of chop. That was fun and the little boat just was smooth and happy as could be. So was I. At this point I knew I was out far. Then it happened. Ten feet on my left, off the middle of the boat. I heard the sound I have heard a few times before. Dall's Porpoise, taking a breath. The dark wonders that I knew lived out here in a family group of 9 to 15. I have watched these wonderful friends from the house using binoculars. Now here they ere. Right next to me. It was a thrill. Then this one Porpoise turned into 4. As quick as that they were gone. I'm sure I got in their way. These are a serious type of water mammal. They work hard for their living. Not a lot of time to play. I was jut taken by the whole event. Then I realized how far out I was. The little boat was to comfortable and gentle. Kind and sea friendly for her size. I had the swing keel in the full down position. I think that makes a big difference to her feel. So after the excitement I turned towards shore on a long easy angle. No hurry to get close to the land. After losing time and my relationship to where I was. Mary Anne called. Cel phones are great when they work. I was almost to Maxwellton! Time to turn around and head home. I rolled the head sail up and re-started the outboard motor. It was going to be a long drive back. All was perfect. I saw a half sunk dinky and headed over to it. I was going to pick it up and tow it back to my mooring ball. It would be a really heavy tow half sunk. It did have a bow line on it for towing. I just was not up to it today on the first adventure with "Little Siren". So I kept going home. Then the motor slowed to a stop. Not good! It sounded like it ran out of gas. I had 3.5 gallons in the tank. That's hour and hours of motor time. I opened the rear hatch and looked at the now sunken in tank. I had not opened the vent. The vent lets the gas move out of the tank easy. You close it to move the tank or the gas will spill ot this vent. I opened the vent squeezed the pressure ball and pulled the cord on the outboard and it started right up. All was well again. I could see the other boats in our 4 boat Yacht Club a few miles away. When I got closer the weeds got thicker and thicker. I was a little worried about the motor sucking some up in the impeller and making the motor over heat. Never happened. Though I kept a close eye on the water coming out of the cooling system of the motor. If that stops you have a problem. All was well. As I got near the mooring ball I get a little nervous. I'm used to docks. Mooring balls is new to me and the wind was blowing a bit. Making the whole operation a little harder. It took 3 tries to get the line of the dingy. I got the line on that third try and was not about to let it go. So I pulled us into the mooring ball. Holding the line walked forward over the cabin were the lines that go onto the ball and hold the boat were. It all went perfect. I was hooked on and going no where. Just like I wanted to. I put every thing back where in it's place locked the boat got on the dinky and got to shore. It was a great first sail on the "Little Siren".