I had a great time sailing last Thursday with Phil Campbell, owner of Lawn Ranger (Legendary Yard Care!). I hadn’t seen Phil in a few months, as he’s super busy during the spring and summer. I met Phil about five years ago when he worked in sales for Integra Telecom. We just kind of hit it off, and it turned out that Phil actually has a very interesting life story. In his early twenties, he ran away and joined the circus—literally! The thing is, Phil is this amazingly gifted musician—he plays trumpet and piano—and he was hired by the Ringling Bros./Barnum & Bailey Circus to play in the band! So, for 10 years, Phil lived on the train with the lions and tigers and bears (oh, my!), chugging from town to town, and organizing a few local musicians at every whistle-stop to play with the circus while it was in town. Phil’s got some great stories from his life as a traveling musician, and I just enjoy being around the guy. Being a bit of an amateur guitar player myself, Phil and I will get together and butcher the best of the Beatles, Dire Straits, Van Morrison, and anything else we can think up and try to play together. Actually, Phil always sounds great—he’s one of those perfect-pitch musical types who can hear a song once and play it note for note. Me, on the other hand, well…let’s just say I’ve got about 10,000 more hours of practice to achieve any level of mastery. But we have fun, and lots of it.

But back to the sailing. Both Phil and I are 200+ lb. guys, so rowing out to Splendido was a bit of a comedy act in our 8′ Walker Bay dinghy. But, with catlike grace and athleticism, we managed to lumber aboard without getting wet. I walked the dinghy forward and tied it off on the buoy and cast us free, where some gentle afternoon breezes took us easily out over toward Chambers Landing. We gobbled up some Subway sandwiches and talked, talked, talked…and then the wind died. Completely. So, we just sort of bobbed around the bay for an hour or so and talked some more, while the sails hung lank and Tahoe began to take on its telltale pinkish hue as the sun got lower and lower. Finally, I turned on the motor and we started back…and the wind picked up! So we had “bookend” winds on this particular outing. They actually picked up pretty good, to the point where we were getting over 5 knots on the gauge and a bit of a heel, too. I made a complete hash of flaking the sail as we drew near to the buoy, so I had Phil make a big circle, which gave me time to tidy things up a bit and dive below for the boat hook. By this time, Phil was an “old hand” with the wheel and throttle, and we made our approach. Phil steered us perfectly to the buoy, then gently hit reverse to stop the boat. I got the mooring line on the first try. It was awesome. Looking forward to more music and sailing magic with Phil in the future!

Fair winds and smooth sailing. DB