Weekly Photo Challenge: Up

From the safety of our vee birth

Under the hatch I realized I’d never get a clear shot

I climbed up on the deck and carefully laid down on my back

And again I clicked away

Our beautiful spinnaker in all its majesty

Definition of a spinnaker by the good people at Wikipedia:
A spinnaker is a special type of sail that is designed specifically for sailing off the wind from a reaching course to a downwind, i.e. with the wind 90°–180° off the bow. The spinnaker fills with wind and balloons out in front of the boat when it is deployed, called flying.

A drag car will blow a parachute behind to help it stop but sailers will blow the parachute in front of them pulling them forward.

A spinnaker is flown, not sailed. When you fly, you go up. When you do it incorrectly you are either thrown up in the air and off your boat or you simply throw up. Whether you use it correctly or not, one thing is certain: you will indeed speed up which is why the spinnaker is mainly a racing sail.

Yes – it can be that bad. A spinnaker can and will overtake your boat, it has that power. A measly thin and lightweight piece of fabric can destroy a 20-ton boat. I once aptly called it the pretty thing of death, when I wrote of our near death experience during our 3rd attempt to fly the hellaker.

Oddly enough that our death trap is emblazoned with a butterfly. A pretty little innoffensive butterfly. Or a flutterby as I once heard a niece call it while I most likely snickered at her cuteness. This butterfly only proves once more I am a psychic.

Cue flashback visuals and background music.

I was 5 or maybe 6 years old, the specific age is inconsequential – basically I was young, naive and afraid of my own shadow. Truly, I was a chicken. One day riding my bike alone on my way to the local pool my bike screeched and skidded to a stop as I screamed bloody murder. Just as I was about to make my way into a shortcut through houses a butterfly sat on the ground blocking the entrance to the trail. That’s it. All it did was sit on the ground with its wings open. And I screamed one of those annoying high shrill screams as if Hannibal Lecter himself motioned me to come closer.

I was freakishly afraid of them because of some 70’s B-movie about killer butterflies. My instincts told me I’d be killed by butterflies one day. Little did I know… oh how little did I know!

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This is my 2nd entry to the Weekly Photo Challenge. This week’s theme is UP: Up can be a direction, an orientation, or even a movement.

Click on the link to discover hundreds others who share truly incredible images maybe you’ll want to link up too!

Other cool submissions in this week’s prompt:

1. Weekly photo challenge: Up | Digital Art and photography by Irfan Hussain
2. Up All Night | Broken Light: A Photography Collective
3. Weekly Photo Challenge: Up | Ohm Sweet Ohm
4. Weekly Photo Challenge: Up | Paths Unwritten
5. WordPress Photo Challenge: Up  | Woven Decor
6. Weekly Photo Challenge: Up – Joy and Woe
7. Weekly Photo Challenge – UP | Thomas Leech Photography
8. Weekly Photo Challenge: Up | The Eclectic Eccentric Shopaholic
9. Weekly Photo Challenge: UP | eagerexplorer
10. Weekly Photo Challenge: Up | Ryan Photography
11. Up « Thoughts of a Lunatic
12. Stairway to? | thoughtsofrkh
13. Weekly Photo Challenge: Up | « The Great Escape » Life from behind a lens
14. Weekly Photo Challenge: Up | flowing design by suri
15. Weekly photo challenge: Up | This, that and the other thing
16. Quite Some Characters | Empire of Lights
17. Weekly Photo Challenge: Up | Lily Mugford
18. Looking up in Paris | Thirdeyemom
19. Weekly Photo Challenge: Up | belgradestreets
20. Weekly Photo Challenge: Up | Still and All
21. Weekly Photo Challenge: Up | 2812 photography
22. Weekly Photo Challenge: Up (African Boy)
23. Weekly Photo Challenge: Up (Tax) | What’s (in) the picture?
24. Weekly Photo Challenge: Up (Dry) | What’s (in) the picture?
25. Weekly Photo Challenge : Up | My Kind of Happiness
26. more to come…