Out with Liz…

This is the second time Liz has ever been out on a sailboat with me. I feel a little pressure to perform. I’ve been out quite a few times now and feel much more confident now. I had booked a 31’ Catalina to take out, but it needed a last second repair so they upgraded me to one of their 34’ Hunters.
the weather forecast kept changing, and when they day came for us to go out winds were blowing at 20-25 knots with gusts in the 30’s. Oh boy. We left the dock fine and motored straight out into the bay. I instructed Liz to keep us pointed in the wind while I raised the main. While the sail was fluttering around my face I hear a loud “there’s a boat coming right at us!.” I looked back and a huge cargo ship had just exited the channel, and was in fact heading right at us. It was approximately 500 yards away and I told Liz to keep heading straight as I had almost got the sail up. A minute later “it’s still heading right at us!” The sail was now up… we moved to port, the tanker went to starboard and all was well. The afternoon went well though, especially for how windy it was. Nothing broke, we didn’t hit anything and Liz was a rock star as usual.