Date: 29 October 2006/Depart: 1100, Anchor Marina / Arrive: 1630 Anchor Marina /Wind: S, 12-14/Tide: Falling to Rising/Temp: 80deg F/Water Temp: 75 deg F/Skies: Clear blue/Water: Blue/ Seas: 2-3'/Crew: CB

It was a beautiful morning, the first day of daylight savings time (reversal), and CB called from Donna about 0830, but I ignored it and burrowed under the covers a bit deeper, turning on the weather radio in order to hear the forecast. The electronic voice calling for light wind and seas, a breeze around 10 by the afternoon, and seas less than 3 feet. The 35 mile buoy was at 1 and the 200 miler at 3, so I called Chris back (without too much optimism for wind), and we discussed the game plan. Fish or sail? I told him we could fish and then see if the wind would cooperate.

Around 1000 he showed up, and I finished packing some food and beer, and stepped outside. A warm light breeze was already blowing. The day was the kind of day that makes us get selective amnesia after having survived another brutally hot summer. I knew instantly what to do.

In Port Isabel, the flags were rippling in the perfect breeze in the clear blue post cold front sky, taunting us. We took a drive along the North Shore, and the Bay looked placid and blue. I didn't see any other stick boats out.

At Anchor I noticed that the tide was rapidly falling (predicted low at 1330) as we loaded the boat. We talked for awhile to an old man on the dock, and when he left, I was vacillating about going out, not wanting to hang up on the treacherous bar at the harbor entrance. Finally I decided to just go, so we untied the lines, and I powered off of the muddy bottom that Olivia was beginning to sit down on.

We made it outside without incident, raising up the canvas, heading eastbound on a good course, and at a good clip.

Nearing the Causeway underpass, I tried to slip it through on the same tack, but the wind was so dead on, that I fired up the iron genny, and motored through, to the other side. That's what they make engines for right? I'm trying hard to adopt that philosophy, contrary to pure sailing. It seems to fit OK too, and I sure don't want to get accused of being a purist snob anyway. I got that way about fishing once, got so engrossed in fly fishing that a friend of mine accused me of being a purist, said that eventually, I'd even ditch the fly reel, just coil the line in a basket, fish only blue ribbon trout streams, ignore all my spin and cast friends....Eventually I flunked out of my first attempt at college there in the great Pacific Northwest because of flyfishing, and that shocked me back to reality...

I digress....

The day was about as beautiful as we've had all year and we held a tack straight through the powerlines heading for the Sea Ranch entrance on the Island. I turned due south, and with wind on the nose we had to do quite a bit of tacking to get to the Pass. Olivia is a boat that, although responsive, is much more comfortable in the open sea, and so we struggled with close quarter tacks in winds that were light, but somewhat gusty. We managed to poke our nose east up the pass, but when I looked behind me, wouldn't you know it? Several miles west were two tugs pulling an enormous oil platform outbound. I made another tack, drawing near to Barry Chambers and his trimaran, bumping the shallow bottom in Dolphin Cove before deciding to head back, North up the side channel and wait for the platform to pass.

So we tacked back and forth, North and South for about an hour as the tugs slowly tugged the monstrous thing out of the pass. Chris wondered how many gallons of diesel per mile the tugs would consume in order to get the platform out on its station, somewhere on the shallow continental shelf in the Gulf of Mexico.

There were a lot of other small boats out, and we were joined by three other sailboats, one of them deciding to head west up the Brownsville ship channel, passing the thing port to port.....I decided he either had bigger huevos than I do, or less brains.....

Finally the Platform and its attendant tugs passed the channel, and I decided to go west for awhile, as it was already about 1530 or so. We cruised along the channel, noting the tides' extreme low, mud flats on Mexiquito flats totally exposed, Rosette Spoonbills, Herons and Gulls all having a field day working over the vulnerable tender invertebrates. Fishing skiffs lined the South side shallows as we glided along, drinking cold St. Paulis' Girl beer. Chris talked about the irony of having had to wait for the rig to pass on such a beautiful day, and I started feeling guilty about having chosen a westerly course, up a landlocked channel. He had worked hard handling sail, never complaining, never talking too much, and it was time to reward him. I figured we'd have enough time to at least get a little way offshore, so I spun the boat around and headed toward the Pass.

We lined up with two perfect tacks, the second which gave us a course heading that took us out of the jetties, and we sailed near to Hard Bottom Too and Fish Tails, both anchored just off of the North jetty, fishing.

'Div picked up speed, heeling over with the port rail near the water as Chris hoisted the Baby sail, and we sped off like a mare in a gallop on a course heading of 315 magnetic. Drinking the last beers, we sailed till we couldn't see the entrance buoys, and the sun started to fall into a fierce golden fire in the west.

At a point we both agreed on, we brought her around, and on a port tack, we flew towards the jetties, between the entrance buoys, past Fish Tails, which was just lifting the hook, through the mixmaster, and with most excellent sail shape, making hull speed, tore straight down Brazos Santiago Pass, heading home.

The day had shaped up into pretty close to perfect.

I shouted over at the jetties, to the fishermen, to no one in particular. "Hey", "Check it out!"....."I have SHAPE!"......

We rounded the turn at Dolphin Cove, fiddling with the sails, finicky winds here now, wing on wing, driving northwest at Fish Bones, on a better port tack again, regaining the wind and....shape, all the way back through the Causeway pass, past Pirates Landing pier, and getting close to the treacherous entrance channel, we doused the sails, fired up the engine and motored in. Ahead of us was a bay shrimper, who apparently, unfamiliar with the area, strayed a bit west and was hard aground. Passing him, close to the green buoy, I indicated the route with my hands,  to the skipper in the wheelhouse, and rounded the entrance, past all of the moored boats as the sun slipped below the horizon.

The tide now rising, wasn't quite enough for us to float in, and I had to (minimally) power up into the slip. We tied off, sort of cockeyed, still a little bit on the bottom, but by the time we'd folded sails, offloaded and secured everything, we were once again floating, and I was able to center the boat in the slip. A perfect end to a perfect day.