I’ve been busy. You would think things would slow down around here since I’ve been laid off, but nooooo… I’m just as busy as ever!
Saturday I went out with Capt Vic on the Bat Boat (she’s a C&C 38). We were a little late getting underway due to some trouble with the battery (it was dead). We made it to the starting line right on time (actually about 2 minutes early).
It was a gorgeous day, there were lots of boats out sailing. Capt Vic said about 60 were in the race with us. A few different classes of boats. I’m not really sure what they all were, I’ve really only started learning about racing sailboats.
These races are set up through the Galveston Bay Cruising Association. They have all sorts of races, regattas, cruises, etc. I don’t know much at all about how they run these races, just that we were one of the bigger, heavier, slower boats. Not using spinnikers.
The sun was out and the wind was about 10-15 kts for the first part of the race. It slowed waaaay down after we made the turn to head back towards Kemah. We took down the jib and put up the ‘gennaker‘ (the bat sail) and it actually helped a lot in the lighter winds.
We did lose some time, mostly because we were not used to setting that sail and it took us a while to get it working properly. Once we got it set, we had a nice, leisurely sail back towards Kemah. We were doing pretty good in the race til then, but we fell behind while we were messing around with the gennaker. 🙁
We made it to the finish line right before sunset and got to watch the sun go down and the full moon rise over the bay. The sunset was nice, but the moon was absolutely stunning! I wish I could have taken some better pictures, but I was on the wheel at the time and couldn’t concentrate on the camera, I had to pay attention to the traffic in the channel.
It was getting dark by the time we got to the dock. We fought off the mosquitos while folding up the sails up the dock. Once we got everything secured, we could try out the ‘dark and stormies’ we had been hearing about all day. D. came up with some mosquito spray and we had our 1st rewarding rum drinks out in the parking lot.
Not too bad. 😉
We slowly made our way over to the clubhouse for the afterparty. The Rum Races are sponsored by Cruzan Rum and so we had to head up there for the end of the race announcements. We had to see who won (even if we knew we didn’t), we could still enjoy the rewards. Free rum and snacks to go with it. 🙂
It was fun to hang out for a while and talk over the race with the other sailors. Everyone was friendly and in good spirits. The free rum helps with that. 😉
Some of us decided to go out for a more hearty snack from there and we met up at Sam’s Boat for nachos, sliders, chicken wings and more good stuff. 🙂
I made it home about 3 am. Days like that really make me appreciate the life of a sailor. 🙂
