“Feel one with the boat,” she muttered to herself as she pulled on the small sailboat, repeating the instruction she’d been given in the crash course on sailing she’d taken back in Annapolis. The problem, however, was that she felt like she was more than her share of that “one” with the small, single-person sailboat—not more than a dinghy, really. She was sure, though, that if she was going to get the hang of this sailing business, it was going to be in a Penguin-class sailboat. She was much too heavy for the lighter Sunfish, and the sleeker and faster Laser was something she knew, with a mind to how difficult it had been for her to move from typewriter to computer, that she couldn’t handle no matter how hard she tried. And anything requiring more than one person was utterly out of the question. She was definitely, unequivocally a one-person person now. With a grunt and several groans she struggled up to her knees on the rough surface of the pier. This wasn’t easy to do while being careful not to let loose of the line attached to the Penguin, which was bumping gently against the thick wooden poles holding up the pier in the waters of the northward bend of the Choptank River.
