I almost died!
Not really. But I was stranded out in the middle of the bay for several hours completely dependent on the Coast Guard to come to the rescue. So since the ACT was over earlier in the weekend, and I felt truly completely liberated of any type of work, I naturally expressed my newfound freedom by going sailing. My dad knows this guy with a boat. So us three and another lady my dad works with went out sailing and it was hella exciting cause the boat was all tippy cause thats what the boat does when its sailing. Like, all tipping over and stuff, but not enough to sink. Yeah. First we sailed north, into the wind, which I at first didn't understand was possible, but it was cause you can apparently sail up to 45 degrees into the wind. We were taking this small canal to get out into the bay when a huge oil tanker or other such large ship was entering the canal. So we had to hug the side of the canal, in between the tanker and shallow water, because if you've ever been sailing you'd know that getting grounded in shallow water is the third worst thing that can happen. So we got out into the bay and all was well; it wasn't that windy, but the waves were probably at least eight feet high. We kept going north, and we were approaching the San Mateo Bridge (we obviously started souther than the bridge) and we decided to sail under it cause it was cool. Then at the other side we decided to turn around and head back. It should be easy sailing, cause we'd be going back with the wind, right? Well we were heading back, went under the bridge, and wanted to turn a little bit more. The wind was so strong, that the sail almost jibed, which, if you've ever been sailing, is the second worst thing that can happen. It's when you turn and the wind is at the wrong angle so that the horizontal boom thats holding the sail is thrown straight across the boat at full speed, and knocks anyone out of it, and sometimes causes the boat to capsize. But the sail didn't jibe. We turned the rudder so the boat would go back to face the wind, but the wind was so strong and the rudder was so stubborn in the water that to make long story short the wind blew the mast down. As in the big pole that holds the sail snapped and fell. If we were on the wrong side of the boat, it would have crushed us. If you've ever been sailing, losing your mast is the number one worst thing that can happen. So we were sitting ducks in a very literal sense, just south of the San Mateo bridge. Fortunately, T-Mobile gets good cell phone coverage in the middle of the bay. We called the Coast Guard, but they apparently transfered us over to the Alemda County Sherrif who came after an hour. Its funny how these different rescure agencies hate each other. When the sherrif came he was like, "Yeah, the Coast Guard asked us to take this job cause they were supposedly busy... Probably eating lunch." Haha, shut up and just save us, you poohead. But actually we later learned that there were two other boats in the Bay Area that got masted, so the Coast Guard was probably helping them. If you ever go sailing, always be sure to check if there are small craft wind speed warnings. Anyway, they were gonna tow us to a harbor, but they couldn't cause the mast was still half-stuck to the boat by all these cables and ropes and whatnot, and the other half was in the water, acting as a giant parachute to precent towing. So we had to cut through all this stuff with nothing but a swiss army knife and wire cutters...until we remembered there was a hacksaw below the deck. Someone shoulda been slapped. So anyway we got towed to safety and then we all went home and took warm showers and then
I watched Airplane! yesterday on TV. Too bad if they made movies like that again they'ed get sued by blacks, gays, nuns, Israelis, and everyone else they blatantly make fun of. Yeah. Now I wanna go finish reading the 6-dollar Calvin & Hobbes book I got on sale at Borders the other day.