The moon and stars are in some kind of weird alignment; I went to the boat last night for the third time in four days. My sister's family is up to help her 6 year old celebrate her birthday, and Talia wanted to go on the boat. So I met Deb and Talia at the boat for a quick ride.

Talia had never been on a boat before, and we were going to be out during her normal dinner time, so we were a bit apprehensive about how flexible she was going to be. We shouldn't have worried. She seemed to like everything about the ride. It was a bit breezy, so I decided at the dock if we were going to unfurl any sail at all, it would be the genny. When we got out to the inner harbor, it was gusting up near 15, so I told Deb that it was unlikely we would be doing any sailing. She thought that was quite fine as she wanted this to be fun for Talia, and not at all scary. So we motored out past the rocks and into the Sound. I should note that I had never seen the tide lower than it was when we left. You could see a good three feet of bottom beneath the riprap against the parking lot.

We stuck to the channel between the mermaids, and then past the rocks into the Sound. We turned east for a bit and got closer to Clam Island before we started back. I let Talia steer us for quite some time, especially when we got back into the harbor. She steered us in circles, and seemed to take her responsibility quite seriously.

Back at the dock, we unfurled the genny so she could see it, and I showed her the ladder we use to climb on and off the boat when we go swimming. She said that next time we go out on the boat, she wants to sail and go swimming. Done deal. Talia also seemed to enjoy saying "Arrrr" a lot. All told, I think we were out on the water for about an hour.

Another convert!

And, I figured out that the boat from the other day that I loved was a Seafarer 31. Got to get me some more info.