Fall Break 2010

We had a very successful weekend of sailing and a great break in the routine at work. We have both been working very hard, so it was great to have a long weekend.

We drove down to Corpus on Friday and found the boat in reasonably good shape. Evidently, the short in the shore power that caused us to be without power on the last trip also fried our battery charger. We replaced that and had both DC and AC power. A tropical storm came through shortly after our last trip and there was evidence of several leaks around the windows. Most of Saturday morning was spent cleaning up all of that.

The weather couldn't have been better. All weekend, we had high temperatures in the upper 80s and lows near 70. The biggest treat was that there were no mosquitoes so we could leave the hatches open and did not have to deal with the air conditioner at night.

Saturday was a beautiful day for sailing with good consistent winds and an easy chop on the bay. The Bay Yacht Club was holding races and we got some nice pictures of their boats running "wing on wing."

This is another boat that we saw on that day with one of the brightest jibs that we have seen.

The plan for Sunday was to spend the day working on the boat and then go out just before sunset to try sailing after dark. The wind was high all day so we were hopeful that it would decrease by sunset - no such luck. We went out with one reef in the main and still had too much sail. After 30 minutes of 30-35 degree heel and heavy chop, we were ready to go back in.

Winds were high again on Monday but we were determined to have a good day. We went out with a double reef in the main and 2/3's of the jib furled. That worked for about an hour and then we had to fully furl the jib. Another hour and we had had enough. We went back inside the breakwater where we had protection and spent a couple of hours cruising around the marina and practicing some close quarter maneuvering.

The day spent doing boat work on Sunday and some more hard work Monday afternoon yielded some nice results. We refinished all of the brightwork (wood) and polished the the stainless steel lifeline stanchions. It is always nice to leave the boat looking great and anticipating getting back to it in a few weeks.

Here is a photo album from the weekend:
http://picasaweb.google.com/walt.oler/FallBreak2010#slideshow/5527350884744577618