I grew up on power boats. One of my first memories was sleeping on the engine box of our 22’ Chris Craft.  My Dad had that boat when I was born, and we always had some boat.

I had some “lessons” on the 42’ Chris Craft that we had during my elementary and junior high school years. That was a tough boat to maneuver because it always seemed to one engine down. I learned a little as to how to “side walk” it using one engine and forward and reverse gears. But I didn’t get the hang of this until my Dad bough a 1966 19’ wooden Century Speedboat, with a 350 HP inboard engine, and separate handles for throttle and gear shift. I got so good at handling this boat, people thought it had bow thrusters. I truly could get into a “zone” and put that little 19 ‘ boat in a 19’ 2” space without having to throw a line ashore.  If I had a parallel life, I think I’d want to be a tugboat captain on New York’s East River.

It’s been a while since "I’ve been in that zone.  But between Robert and I, I am the better power boat person, and Robert is the far better sailor. So I do all the docking. And I’ve been put to the test a few times in these European marinas.   And let’s not forget Bermuda and the the big concrete seawall.   We had to move the boat in Horta, from the entry seawall to a tight slip, and then out of that tight slip into another less tight slip, but a tight entry to the slip.  It gets really tight here . Lots of boats rafted up. One boat, our South African friends had a really tough time getting out.  There were 6 people helping, although I’ll bet he could have gotten out easier if no one “helped”, if you know what I mean.

Then we went to Sao Georges and tied up to the sea wall after marina hours, and in the morning,  they put us into a nice wide slip, but right  behind the slip is boulders. Big rocks. Big hard solid pointy rocks. Right there. Within spitting distance from the aft deck.

Even though we were safe in the slip and touring the  island, I worried about backing out of the slip. The boat backs OK, but It can be tricky in windy conditions.  The worst scenario was for the wind to be blowing into the little harbor and blowing us into the rocks while backing out.  And OF COURSE, Right as we were getting ready to go, the wind picked up blowing right into the harbor!  Thing is, we had to go to get back to Horta to get ready for new crew, so waiting was not an option!  So I got into the “zone”, backed the boat out with a hard port rudder, spinned the boat in it’s own length and merrily cruised out in forward gear.

Then we had to raft up once back in Horta. The slips were all taken. And again, I got into the zone and made a perfect landing, alongside one very cool boat named “Great Dane” from Canada.

We leave for Lisbon in a couple of days!  I hope the zone lasts when we get there!