This post is dedicated to my friend, Margee, who was stuck at work on the day we were sailing. I promised her this post and wrote it so she could sail vicariously through me. I’d like all my readers to wish her congratulations as she recently graduated from veterinary school and is now a Doggy Doc.
Well, Friday, I went down to s/v Felix to see if I could help with a few of the issues we discovered on the delivery trip. When John got to the boat, we took her out for a short sail. As you can see from this photo, it really wasn’t looking to be great weather for a sail.
The view aft as we were leaving the marina.
On our way out of the harbor, we saw three Optimist dinghies training. This reminded me of my friend Alex’s son, Fred, who competes in the Optimist class back in Portugal
Optimist Sailing Dinghies with a chase boat.
The afternoon sail started out with fairly heavy fog…. oddly, there was still wind, which is fairly unusual for foggy conditions.
Sailing into a foggy afternoon on Buzzards Bay.
This did not bode well for the afternoon’s sail or what conditions would be like out on Buzzards Bay. However, conditions and sailing turned out to be much better than one would expect. The sun tried to break through the heavily overcast skies and fog several times.
Detail of sky, as sun tries to break through overcast skies.
The pale sun tries to make an appearance.
However, all afternoon, the sun kept trying to make an appearance, and at one point we were sailing with sun above and only about a 1/4 mile of visibility all-around due to heavy fog down low.
We were not alone. Off and on during the day we would spot a ghostly sailboat companion.
Another sailboat was a ghostly and silent companion.
I was curious as to how a smaller monohull sailboat, with only a mainsail up and towing a dinghy was able to keep fair pace with us. Well, as we got closer, it was pretty clear, they were motorsailing.
They were motorsailing.
The fog got heavier and lighter as the sun and clouds battled it out during the day. At times the clouds and fog were winning, as you can see here.
The fog overpowers the sun...
The heavy fog reminded me of a Stephen King novella called The Mist. It was one I gave my twin brother just before he went on a ski trip to Maine, and the heavy fog they had during the trip had him pretty freaked out. Psychological mind-games on your family and friends can be so much fun.
The fog deepens
The strangest part was that during even the heaviest fog, we still had a decent amount of wind, varying from about 5 knots up to about 12.
Returning to Marion, we decided to see whether we could pick up the mooring under sail. On the sail back to the mooring, the sun finally won the battle for the day.
Sailing into Sippican Harbor
Clearing blue skies and light winds were our companions as we ghosted along at two knots.
Clearing blue skies as the sun wins out.
John at the helm under light conditions as we ghost along Marion harbor.
We failed at picking up the mooring under sail. It was my first attempt to pickup the mooring on a Gemini catamaran, much less under sail… but we did get pretty close. Oh, well… I’ll do better next time. One of the more interesting boats in Marion Harbor is this Newick influenced home built boat. The boat’s owner’s brother designed the boat and worked for Dick Newick prior to designing the boat.
An interesting home-built Newick-influenced Trimaran
I headed off to have dinner with my extended family, which is a Friday ritual. Unfortunately,when I called to let them know I was headed up, I found that my aunt had to cancel, so I called John and headed back to the marina to have dinner with John. When I was heading back out the s/v Felix with the launch to meet John, the sun had clearly won out over the fog and overcast skies of earlier in the day.
The sun clearly won out at the end of the day.
We went to Margaret’s, in Fairhaven, which is a regular stop for the crew of my boat and led to one of the big surprises of the evening.
As we walked in the restaurant, a man sitting at a table near the door asked who I was. When I asked him why he wanted to know, he asked if I owned a Gemini Telstar. I replied, “Yes, I have a Telstar 28, and it is made by the company that makes the Gemini catamaran.” He said, “I’m Walt.”
I knew immediately knew who he was now. He and his wife Carolyn own a Gemini 105 Mc catamaran, and we’d been in e-mail contact off an on for several years. He had sent me some photos of my boat under sail, but we had never met in person. Walt was one of the Gemini owners that I had been wanting to introduce John to, since Walt keeps his boat a short way down the harbor from mine, and has owned her for quite some time and has done some excellent video of his boat under sail.
After dinner, and speaking with Walt and Carolyn a bit more, we headed over to the Brady Ice Box for dessert. They had just closed for the evening, but opened to let us buy some ice cream. One of the young ladies working there is one I remembered from previous visits. Here she is , on the left, with one of her co-workers from a trip to the Brady Ice Box three years ago.
The crew at the Brady Ice Box, summer 2006
It really seems to me that the signs that John and s/v Felix were meant for each other are all showing up this summer.