Last week, I did not climb once. Sure, I climbed Saturday and then bouldered Sunday, but I'm talking about the weekdays. Not one climb. As a reward to myself for helping a wee small dog (and for generally being a kickass gal) I treated myself to sailing lessons out on this big beautiful lake here in Burlington. Four days, 3 hours a day after work, learning the finer points of dinghy sailing.

No, not the rubber raft type. The 14-foot open boat with a main sail and jib, piloted in very wobbly figure 8s in the bay outside the Burlington Community Sailing Center. It was a w e s o m e.

(Mom? Close that email window. No. The Meringue and I know what you're thinking, and it's still not funny, 20 years later. We know. )

The very first day, to allay everyone's fears, we capsized the boats. Got it out of the way first thing, which was incredibly reassuring, as it turns out that the 14-foot Hobies have this tiny bubble at the top of the mast that, when the boat falls over, stops the whole thing from going all the way over and keeps it horizontal. And at that point you clamber up the (now-vertical) deck, over the side, and use the power of your massive ass to pull the boat back up to a sitting position. I rolled my dinghy on the first try, due mostly to the massiveness of the ass in question. Pretty little climbing muscles have their uses.

Of course, the bubble at the end of the mast does nothing to protect your boat against thunderstorms. That was Tuesday. I watched the grey clouds gathering over the far side of the lake as I walked down the hill from work, and as I turned the corner past the Coast Guard station, I could see the Sailing Center dock, where a massive number of crows were getting organized for zipping across the water out of the path of the impending storm. When the animals take off, it's generally wise to try to figure out where they got their information.

So class started with all of us plus the Sailing Center staff, some renters and an outgoing kids class huddled in the barnlike Center, watching a combination of sheet and fork lightning strike the lake, and taking bets on whether any of it was going to wipe out the boats still left anchored in the marina. And we're all pressed against the front windows, having dispensed with pretending to listen to our instructor explain the finer points of tacking, when there's this thunder like a movie gunshot, and the whole place flashes a brilliant white. It's a good thing we listened to the crows, people, because lightning did indeed hit the Sailing Center with a massive crash, leaving that lovely intangible cathode sensation in its wake. And everyone inside the Sailing Center is cheering the beautiful lightning and remarking on our good fortune at being inside the building while the beautiful lightning does its thing.

Which was when our instructor decided we should go sailing.

So you can look here to see the pretty moving pictures of storm activity across the lake, and apparently on Tuesday, after the Sailing Center got hit by lightning, there was a "window" in the storm. Some of us might have called that the "eye" of the storm, but that is why we are the pupils and not the instructors. So.

We dragged out three boats from behind the Sailing Center ("Nobody touch anything metal!"), rigged them all up with their sails and whatnots, and began rolling them down the dock. The first boat gets in the water okay, and they go over to one of the finger docks to put down their rudder, which is sticking a little. But we rolled the second boat into the water and just could not get it off its cart. Which meant that even when the third boaters (including me) went over to try to help dislodge it and get it floating, there were four people who had not, up until the day before, touched a sailboat, all poking at this poor Hobie, and not making very much progress. Meanwhile, our instructor has taken out a Zodiac in preparation for some on-water instructing, and is whipping around the harbor, out of hearing range of the four of us and our wounded Hobie.

Which is when we saw the *other* dark clouds.

Suffice it to say, no boating was done that day. Except by the instructor in the Zodiac. Instead there was a kind of massive reverse fire-drill of dragging dinghies (wounded and otherwise) back up the docks, de-rigging them at speed (remember, Day 2 of hands on a sailboat) and shuttling them back behind the building, all the while keeping an eye on the lightning hitting the lake.

We have a makeup day scheduled for next week.