My list of funny (aka stupid) sailing episodes could fill a book. A year or two ago the wife and I pulled into a small side tributary of the Columbia River and tied up to a public dock for the night. The rest of the dock was occupied by a club of power boaters, but I didn’t hold that against them. Nevertheless, they partied late into the night so when we left the next morning we tried to be real quiet and not disturb anyone. Now this tributary was pretty narrow so making a “U turn with my Catalina 34 required advanced skills. The current prevented me from just “muscling” the boat around from the dock. After leaving, my plan was to motor towards the far bank and then bring her hard over. This should have been ok as the banks were steep and I could get real close. I forgot about the overhanging trees – who worries about trees at 7am when they’re on a sailboat? Besides that, I had my bimini up so even if I thought about trees, I wouldn’t have seen them. Anyhow, I remembered the trees as I heard the first dead branch crack against my mast. My wife yelled some meaningless giberous as I bellowed out, “Oh, #&#^%$ !”. I threw the boat into reverse as the dead branches continued to break and rain onto our vessel. By now every one on the power boats were surely looking out their portholes at the commotion. The rest of my departure was unorganized pandemonium. Amazing how many dead branches, leaves and what ever can land on one boat deck – clean up and my wife’s verbal enjoyment of my prowlness took place the rest of the morning. No damage to the boat.