A Tale of Two Chemists: The "Yee Haa" method

The "Yee Haa" method … Saturday 9th March 2013

We like to think we are making progress in building our sailing experience - in fact we've now logged 289 days of qualifying experience. However, it's very evident that we won't be able to graduate to real cruisers until we have mastered the "Yee Haa" method. This involves driving your dinghy whilst standing - preferably with no shirt on, or at most a sleeveless T-shirt - at the highest speed possible through the anchorage or mooring field. The driver holds a line at the bow of the dinghy with one hand and and the tiller of the outboard with the other, whilst striking an heroic pose (essential) and gazing into the distance . We've never actually heard anyone shouting "Yee Haa" but presumably this is just because the words were lost in the wind. As you can imagine this is mostly a male thing, although you do see some women practicing this method and one occasion in Marsh Harbor I'll swear the lady was wearing a black T-shirt, black jeans and cowboy boots! Our problem - well one of our problems - is that we don't have a rigid bottom to our dinghy. Instead we have an inflatable bottom and keel tube - all of which is a little squishy to stand on. We are working on the belief that there's only one thing less cool that sitting whilst you are driving your dinghy and that's falling overboard whilst practicing the "Yee Haa" method.

We had a very pleasant and relaxing day. In the morning we went to shore on Stocking Island, the land that forms the eastern protection of Georgetown Harbor. We hiked up to the monument where the views were simply awesome and then down to the Exuma Sound (Atlantic) side beach, which was also beautiful. The surf was crashing in form the large ocean swells that are starting to build from the storms further north in the west Atlantic. In the next couple of days swells on the seas open to the Atlantic are expected to peak at 9-13 feet. Whilst out walking we bumped into the South African couple who were on the dock next to ours At River Dunes, NC, during Hurricane Sandy. It's a small world. We came back to the boat for lunch and then in the afternoon and evening I explored further south on Stocking Island and returned to take evening photos, whilst Gloria rested and tried (successfully) to fight off a headache. We are a little skeptical about the many cruiser activities that are organized here, I think by nature we must be bit anti-social. However, there's no questioning how beautiful the area is.

Mike