Wilson!

When we go grocery shopping each week I like to take our blood pressure at the machine. Last year at this time Andrew's blood pressure was around 150/100 and we were getting a little worried. So we quit smoking, started exercising and changed our diet to emphasize fruits/vegetables and legumes, and cut down on the animal products and junk food. I haven't kept up with the exercise but Andrew has and it has paid off. Today his reading was excellent and on average he is now around 130/80. Hopefully by next year he will be down to 120/70 which would be great! This afternoon we had a great day of sailing. The wind wasn't blowing that much (about 7-8mph) but it was just enough to practice some manoeuvers. Andrew has signed us up for the next set of sailing lessons this coming March in Pensacola so we need to review our last class and be well versed in basic sailing and safety drills. We each had lots of helm time today and practiced man-overboard and heave-to. The man-overboard drill is kinda fun. The crew throws out the lifesaving cushion without warning and shouts "man overboard". Then the helmsman has to head away on a beam reach. I kept yelling "Wilson!! Wilson!!!" as we got further and further away from the floating cushion. At about 3 boat lengths away we tack into the wind and head back towards the cushion, keeping the jib luffed (floppy) and approaching with the cushion on the boat's leeward side. This means the boat is blocking the wind from the cushion. The crew then hooks the cushion and the helmsman sets the boat back on its course. Heaving-to is just making the boat come to a stop and keeping it stopped by placing the mainsail, jib and tiller all in opposition to each other. It was also great to be using the tiller that Andrew recently stripped, stained and re-varnished. Much nicer on the hands!