On Saturday I went sailing with the Commander aboard Jeffs Morgan Out-Island 28, Jupiter. I figured I was good enough to at least go, even if I couldn't do any work. Jupiter is moored two boats east of me at Anchor Marina. Jeff got the boat for a song, and is learning to sail, so it looked like a good opportunity to take a relaxed ride and satisfy my sailing jones....

It turned out to be a great day of sailing. We left the dock around 1100 on a sort of grey day with the winds light out of the west, forecasted to come north-northwest by the afternoon.

Jeff hadn't had Jupiter out for awhile and while he and the Commander fiddled with the Yanmar, I visited Jean up in the office at Anchor for awhile. Mark is out of rehab, and is a terror now that he's cured....It's puro babysitting for poor Jean.

Anyway, I loaded up my raingear because we have been in a period of rain and cold for the past several weeks, and Saturday didn't look a whole lot better. We untied the docklines, handed them off to the sofa boat guy, and headed out into the bay. Water looked pretty high and we coached Jeff past the shoals and south of marker 15 where I took the wheel while the Commander and Jeff hoisted up the canvas.

With just enough wind from the right direction we ghosted through the causeway channel overpass, past the powerlines and into the channel that parallels the island. Feeling pretty good, I went up on the foredeck and poled out the big genny as we continued wing on wing to the ship channel.  

In Brazos Santiago Pass the wind started to change to the north and we got blasted with a gust that almost rounded us up. We hauled in part of the big genny on the furler, and the Morgan sat upright and charged for the open Gulf at about four and a half knots. Far from the pig that I assumed such a high sided, center cockpit boat would be.

On the outside the sea was pretty calm, with maybe a three foot ground swell running at a comfortable interval. We continued on an east-southeast tack, turning around after awhile, about midway to the sea buoy. The Commander said he had to be back for a funeral, Jeff suggested that he just send flowers, the funeral-ee wouldn't know he wasn't there anyway.

And we were late getting back inside the jetties anyhow. The first tack west was made too low, and we missed the entrance, so we tacked back out towards the northeast, about half way to the sea buoy again, turning around and getting a good line inbound. Back inside the Brazos, on a beam reach the GPS indicated a surprising almost seven knots. I kept thinking to myself; "why don't I ever have this kind of luck? Most of the time when I'm bringing Olivia back through I have contrary wind and seas and have to fight everything until I get back into the bay."

So we ghosted back towards the causeway on essentially the same tack, only fiddling a bit with the sheet, trimming up a little. Along with the Commander I had been handling sails almost the whole time, and now it was well neigh time Jeff got the feel of it, and anyway my side was starting to talk back a little, so I just took the helm and let the boat have the reins.

David and Jeff were below messing with the fresh water pump, and I was a bit too low coming through the overpass, waited a little long to tack, thinking we might make it, but the wind was too light and the current and leeway to much, so at the last minute I called down below; "Hey, I think we better make a tack", but when we went to starboard, the boat just kept sliding nearer and nearer the retaining wall under the causeway until we were about ten feet from contact. The Commander casually started the engine and we motored back into mid channel with the sails promptly hove too, killing the iron genny, as the current pushed the bow back downwind where we resumed our tack to the west.

Near the channel, we nosed Jupiter into the wind, once again fired up the Yanmar and doused the canvas. Ahead, another obstacle (besides the treacherous bar) loomed right in the entrance to the fingers. A Benetau 40 was a bit too far west and aground, trying to wiggle off, swinging 360 degrees on its keel, sometimes blocking the narrow deep part of the channel. We decided to go around the stern, and as we did the skipper, clad in the most fashionable yellow and black yacht boots, tilley hat and West Marine attire shouted over to us, asking us if we could pull him off when we got inside. We responded that we had a fouled prop, and probably inssuficent power anyway, we'd just call someone to tow him off (God forbid the towboats r' us guy) wen we got to the dock.

I handed Jeff the wheel, and soon we were at the dock, where with just a little bit of coaching (and no wind or current), he gently nudged the Morgan into the slip, and we tied off, just as the sun was burning through the clouds, around 1700. As we were tying up, the Benetau came motoring back, turning down the next finger south, obviously defeated by the wretched shallow bar at the harbor entrance.

Later, I went to Olivia, checked the engine, ran the cold blooded thing for about thirty minutes, excercising the transmission. I installed the new depth finder mount, and cleaned the cabin after weeks of rain and cold, taking the bedding topside to the laundry, wiping down coachroof, bulkheads and sole with "mean green" and emptying about a gallon of rainwater from the lowest point in the bilge.

The Commander and Jeff took off, and D came for me around 1830. She asked me if I had done any work out there, and I responded; "no". At least, it didn't feel like work.