Here’s the short story first: two dads and their sons went sailing for a weekend and nobody got seriously injured, missed their mom too much, cried for very long or fell in the water. Also, despite the fact that the boys constantly claimed they were hungry, everyone was well fed.

Here’s the longer version: I watched the barometer peak and then start to drop and knew what was coming — wind and rain. I didn’t exactly know when, but it was. This is cruising in the Pacific Northwest in the winter, so those two things are inescapable. But what is inevitable, too, is sunshine.

My eyes opened quickly around 1:30 on Saturday morning as a big gust of wind swept over the boat. From there an unpleasant swell worked its way into the anchorage and then the rain began. Again, par for the course in the PN-dub.

By the time we’d all climbed from our bunks and rubbed the sleep from our eyes, though, the swell had gotten worse. Not a good scenario, we thought, for getting our crew in and out of a kayak. And with two boys who needed to shed massive amounts of energy, Mike and I knew that we couldn’t hole up in the boat for even part of the day to play games. Otherwise, everything in the short version of the story would probably happen.

So we moved anchorages to a spot that was better protected from what would be a shifting and building breeze. In doing so, a funny thing happened along the way — the sun came out in brilliant fashion to brush away the clouds and rain, as if to say, “Go ahead dads, get those boys some exercise.”

Their boots came off soon after the kayak hit the beach, and not long after that came their coats. No tide pool was sacred. Rocks, sticks and shells had little chance of being left to their own devices. And s’mores were shown no mercy.

By the end they were wet, sandy, full and tired. Perfect.