At 14, every Saturday morning, My friend and I would get into our Sunfish sailboats about dawn, and head out into the Atlantic Ocean near Cape Fear. We sailed until 10 or 11, with trot lines (fishing lines for the ignorant) trailing behind the boats, and our cockpits filling with King and Spanish Mackerel.Anything else went back into the sea.
We would return to shore and sell our fish to local restaurants we had as regular customers. I was a rich kid!
But, at times, we would be so far offshore in those 13 foot overgrown surfboards with sails, that we could not even see the water towers on Wrightsville Beach (NC).
At 14, I had been sailing for more than 10 years SOLO! At 12, I was teaching some Marines at Guantanamo how to sail, and was the youngest person allowed to sail the Special Services Cape Cods! The rules said 16 or older, but an exception was made when I demonstrated my abilities to the Chief!
It's so easy to sit in front of a computer and pontificate, but sometimes it only exposes ignorance on a subject.
