You are fortunate to be sailing. I'm heading to
St Thomas for a week on a J-44 in early March
to kick off my sailing year.
Yey-HA!
I've been drooling over my new chart book for the
last few days. I'm going to look over a lot for sale
on St John. I'd love to build a house over looking
the Drake Channel.
I'm thinking about sailing the Spanish Virgins and then
spending the next few days island hopping beating to
weather to Virgin Gorda to set up a fast return to St
Thomas at the end of the week. I'm not doing the
typical booze cruise. I plan on fishing and cooking
aboard like a cruiser--not a charterer.
If anyone will be down that way between March 5th
and 12th, we can hook up.
Bart
In April I'll be sailing in Barcelona and adding the western
Med to my list of places sailed, and taking a side trip to
Majorca. .
"Capt. NealŪ" wrote in message
...
I have just returned from several days of sailing. The conditions were
close to perfect
with our commencing our sail on the heels of a norther in winds of 25 to
30 knots. My
guest enjoyed the safe and relaxing sailing except for the second day
where the winds
were steady at about 25 knots but gusting to around 35. Unfortunately, it
was a close-
hauled sail to a little offshore island where we could tuck in behind a
sandbar to get out of the three to four foot choppy waves that had been
kicked up in Hawk Channel. My guest had a hard time getting used to the
heel my fine, bluewater vessel
experienced due to being close-hauled in the strong prevailing onshore
winds. She
was happy when we anchored in relatively calm water in the lee of the
sandbar.
The third day we departed from the shelter of the sandbar and sailed well
out
into the Gulf Stream in winds of only 15 to 20 knots. There were some
left-over rollers
from the open ocean of 4-5 feet variety, so my guest got a taste of ocean
sailing. This is something most of you on this group have never
experienced. She held up just fine,
did not become fearful nor did she become sea sick. What a woman! What a
boat!
Too bad Mooron is too chicken to take this fine woman for a sail. . . Too
bad his
vessel is sad and icebound. Too bad he doesn't remain sober long enough to
sail even when the ice has melted.
CN
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