All week the weather forecasts for the Fourth of July looked awful. But when I awoke and looked out at the creek, the conditions looked perfect. Instead of the doom and gloom of a processional of one thunder storm followed by the next, demarcked only by windless, leaden-skied pauses in the maelstrom, there were clear cloudless skies and steady breezes. There was a unanimous agreement among the online weather oracles that it was a mandatory sailing day.....writ large.
After a leisurely breakfast as is only befitting on such a glorious holiday morning, and a rapid prep to get underway, we were off on a delightful daysail. I was blessed by my wife Barbara's company. Barbara describes herself as a 'fair weather sailor'. She classifies a fair weather sailor as a person who prefers to sail on on perfect sailing days. In her mind, she means that she only prefers to sail when the expected winds, and air temperatures are predicted to be perfect, but the weather forecasters always lie.
She comes to that preference honestly after years of sailing with her husband, (that would be me) who thinks any day when you can return to the dock alive is a perfect sailing day.
But today was a perfect sailing day for both of us.