ad28.net

Saturday Erika and I hosted Rachel and Dee  for an afternoon sail on Summer Breeze that turned into an all day adventure.  The weather called for rain till noon and then a 30-40% chance of thunderstorms all afternoon but as you can see above, we got significantly better results!  We got underway with no problems and made it out to Hains Point where we had a bit of a crossing/gybing situation with one of the the big cruise boats coming into Washington Channel.  I attempted to tack away from him but couldn’t punch the nose through the wind and had to settle for a gybe.  So I ended up doing what I’m sure was a stupid looking maneuver right in front of the larger boat.

The only downside to the day’s sail was our repeated difficulty with tacking in the 5-8kt breeze and standard jib/main combo.  The wind was coming from the south and perhaps the current was pushing from the south as well, but on at least 4 occasions I was forced to do a slow gybe vice a nice clean tack.  That aside the low overcast and ominous skies cleared around 3 after 2 solid hours of sailing up in vicinity of Hains Point and we decided to make a day of it and go to Old Town Alexandria.

Based on the wind we were forced to motor our way to Alexandria but the sky just got clearer and the sun brighter so we were in good spirits.  Alexandria City Dock answered my first call on Ch 16 and had a slip available. It was a narrow one with only a foot of clearance on either side, and my transom and outboard stuck out a couple feet but we got in without much spectacle (good thing b/c there are alot of gawkers on the dock and shore there).

We did a modified bar crawl including Bugsy’s and Taverna Creitku… then we met up with Andrew, Megan and Kristin back at the boat for some wine, beer and good conversation.  It was a really great time and I was sorry to shove off at 2000 and head for home.  So was the rest of the crew so we ended up doing a slow motor tour of the Anacostia north of the Douglass bridge and didn’t pull in till 2230!!!

A great time on the boat, Rachel and Dee are welcome back any time they want to come out!!

I’ve taken advantage of the rest of the holiday weekend to make some progress on projects as well – more on that soon.