It floated my boat

At 61, I thought joining a sailing club would shake things up. Capsizing was more than I bargained for. I did it anyway

- FRANCINE KOPUN

When I joined a sailing club on the Toronto Islands, I imagined weeknights on the water with my husband, sipping cocktails on a polished deck, white sails billowing as the sun set on Lake Ontario and the city lit up for the night.

It would be a great way, I thought, to fight the inertia that has been creeping over us with age- we are 122 years old, 61 each.

Our son is in university and my husband's children are adults. We see them often, but the busyness of raising them has passed. Outside of work, we have fallen into the habit of making plans and abandoning them to putter, read, cook, watch movies and all the good standup comedy we can find.

The last time we met friends for dinner on a weeknight we got home at 10:30 and my husband said: "That's it! I'm done! I am through with this hard-partying lifestyle!" My husband is amusing.

Adventure is not his thing. But it's my thing, and I understand that the window of opportunity for grand adventure, at 61, is narrowing. Anyone who says age is just a number hasn't aged enough. It slows the average person down.

I thought sailing wouldn't be too physically demanding and would get us into the kind of nature my husband can enjoy - outdoor settings in which it is acceptable to consume alcohol and mosquitoes are absent.

I signed up to sail, and my husband became a social member, meaning he gets to hang out in the clubhouse.

The last time I was on a sailboat it was large enough to walk around on. There was a cabin below. That's what a sailboat was to me.

Imagine my surprise when we met the club's fleet of Albacores 15-foot dinghies made for racing, equipped with a dizzying array of don't call them ropes - sheets and halyards.