Summer Story- August
This is Chapter 4 of my Summer Story. A Summer with important lessons learned.
Links to the first 3 chapters are at the end of this post
Summer Story- August
By the time August rolled around life at the seashore had a pattern of it’s own that somehow seemed to be without end. The routine was set between swimming in the bay spending time at the beach and sailing on weekends. Friendships were forged and someone always seemed to have an idea as to how to use the water, wetlands and beach for fun. We learned where to dig for clams at low tide, where the best places were to catch crabs and find minnows to use as bait for fishing.
We raced our sailboats every weekend and on one evening during the week. The weekends were the championship series and the mid week race was a fun event with handicaps involved so that even the younger kids had a chance to win. The sailing was an area in which I became skilled very quickly. There was a junior class for sailors up to the age of 18. Some of the older kids had given me a lot of coaching in June and July which helped greatly. I won six races in a row in the championship series and wound up the junior champion when the series ended at the start of August. I was lucky that the races all had moderate or light winds. This gave me an advantage over the bigger kids since I was the lightest contestant in the 20 boat junior group.
August was the month that all the yacht clubs had their regattas to determine regional champions in the various classes. The pattern of my summer changed. I left our resort town every weekend to compete in a regatta at some other yacht club. Coming back to our town dock on Sunday evening was interesting in that a minor celebrity status was now part of my time at the dock. Some of the kids were really proud that I was competing at such a young age. This was a bit embarrassing since I was learning on August weekends how much I still had to learn if I was going to win a prize at a major regatta.
I was always greeted by Harold who showed real interest in my progress. He suggested that on my trips that I should keep my eyes open for some string to add to his collection. He thought it would make the big ball he was building more interesting if there was string from other towns along the coast. I did find string and brought it home to add to the string collection. I still was not sure what this whole string thing was all about. Harold was such a nice man that I continued to take time between races at the regattas to keep my eyes open for string.
The early August weekdays remained pretty much the same. The southeast breezes were with us almost every day. My sailing had taught me a lot about the wind and prevailing breezes. The summers prevailing southerly breezes were what brought us those warm sultry beach days which we enjoyed so much. The first days of August were the dog days of summer with especially hot days and light winds. As kids we were not bothered but the adults often referred to the Dog Days and sought shade rather than the sun in the middle of the day.
I didn’t know that the days at the beach were soon about to change dramatically.
