Sailing Adventure II

Well, this time I took Perry. I was worried that he would be mopey for much of the time, but actually he seemed to really enjoy it. He got his finger caught in the rigging at the beginning of the first day, but seemed to muddle through it well. By the second day he was a regular little monkey jumping around the boat getting things and helping to sail the boat.

The best part was that even though we didn't have a great race on the first day (we took 7th) we smoked the whole field on the second day with a tactical risk that Andy (the skipper) took. We went a different way from everyone else and found a bit of wind that put us about 15 minutes in front of the next contenders in our class. (There are actually 3 classes that are faster, but only one of them finished before us on the second day. We did great.) The total result is that in spite of our poor performance on Saturday we have gone from second overall to first. It was exciting and some great bonding time with Perry too.

Here we have Perry and Andy preparing for a long hard day of sailing.

Perry at the Helm!! His ability to steer came in quite handy on the return trip. There was a time when we needed to Gybe the spinnaker. A challenging task even with many hands so both Andy and I had to be on the sheets and sails. Luckily, Perry was there to be the skipper. (I was actually more terrified in this picture though because Perry is sitting there steering a $100,000 boat in a narrow channel with other boats around.)

It was a gorgeous day to be out sailing. We were never completely out of sight of land or the other sailboats. You can see the Palos Verdes Penninsula fading off into the distance.

The Competition in the distance. (This Picture did not upload like I wanted it to.)

And the island coming up on the horrizon. The really low spot is the isthmus where we spent the night. The race ended about a third of the way from there to the end of the island on the right.

There is a boat that will take you ashore, but it costs $3.50 per person. That's not bad, but it adds up quick so I thought Perry and I could save a bit by going ashore in Andy's little dinghy. It worked well, but unfortunately the blade of one of the paddles came off and sank before Perry could grab it so I had to break down and pay for us to go back to the boat.

I had also brought dinner to cook aboard, but Andy's wife Katie was so sick and desperate to get off the boat that we ate on land instead. Andy treated us all and I gave him the lasagne I had brought in return.

There is more to chronicle but I think maybe I'd better break it up and put it in another post.