A Good Morning sail!

A Good Morning sail!

The day started on a down side. I got on the computer and was not having any luck on getting anything done. When the snail mail came I had a notice that a check we had received and I had deposited bounced. Now I had to check my account to see if anything I had written would bounce and I had to call the check writer about the problem. 

After opening the rest of the mail and separating it out I went back to the computer to do some work. It still was at odds with me!

I looked outside and there was a gentle breeze…TIME TO GO SAILING ! 

I got the dog and some fishing stuff and loaded the boat. I motored out to the river with the trolling motor and dragging a fishing line…I might catch something. 8-) I headed up wind and I put up the jib…to troll and drift and fish. The jib gave me just enough pull to move me along a good trolling rate of speed. With just the jib the boat does not like to steer well and when the wind picked up I had to drop the jib and put the main up.

Most of the time the main goes up without a problem, but not today.  Going up it caught on the lazy jacks twice. The wind was light enough that it was no problem. Once it was up the wind just stopped. Ok, Fine! I could fish. When I had gotten the second line the wind started up. OK, time to sail. I put the jib up, It was a delightful breeze and I tacked back and forth across the river and making very little headway. That was fine…maybe I could catch a channel cat or something.  What TV channel they watched at that time of day I had no idea but did not care, I was sailing. OK…I was going a bit bodman but that was OK, I was on the river and sailing with the dog and he didn’t care either since he was sailing with me. 

It took ¾ s of an hour to sail the ¾ mile to the bridge because of the tacking back and forth on the river. When I got to the Alva Bridge I came about and with a following wind and wing on wing, the dog and I headed home. Being about High noon it was time for a rum ration. 8-) I sailed back at a fast 4 knots. 8-)

I attempted to dropped the sails just be for our canal. The jib came down with no problem but the main jammed on the way down. The halyard just sliding through a jam cleat caught. That just never happens unless you are by yourself.  Once I found the problem it came down OK but I had passed our canal. That is what a trolling motor is for right? We slowly headed back to the canal entrance.

I moved smartly into the canal and got to near the East shallow side of the canal and lightly grounded the keel. No problem…I have a drop keel boat. I pulled up the drop rudder and that freed the boat. It was just the rudder not the keel. Off to the dock and some rum. *-) arrg…

At the end of the canal I was thinking about the rum when I caught the mast in a pine tree branch. Arrg!!!  It popped loose with a shower of pine needles. Off to the dock and rum! I got to our dock and tied the stern. I let the dog off and then the bow floated away from the mooring. Arg…find the boat hook. 

Once moored, I shut everything on the boat down and headed for the house for a rum ration and maybe lunch. I could put the rest of the boat away later. 

The dog and had to agree that the adventure was fun and we needed to try it again tomorrow…Arg!!!

It was a good sail.