Sanity Break
I got out for another sail today. As a stiff southeasterly had been blowing for severs days, the ocean swells were up and sailing conditions remained fairly lively. When I told my barriers I was off sailing, he mumbled something about the wet weather and looked at me like I was slightly crazy ... but "I drink coffee and go sailing to sustain my sanity" I pleaded fruitlessly.
Never one to be put off, I monitored to a launching place, slightly sheltered and to windward of a large bay. It's a great place, an ex WWII Catalina base on Lake Macquarie. No surprises, I had the place t myself. I toyed with the idea of hoisting the main alone, but being a thrillseeker, I gave it everything ensuring everything was set fairly flat.
I initially bore off downwind, I'm a sucker for anchored yachts, there were three in that direction and as I squirted past, I got some waves from those onboard tucked in behind their spray dodgers. I was little bothered by Amy showers as the spray coming off the lake was just as moist. From Rathmines I ran off into Styles Point,and the first anchored yacht there was a massive Lagoon brand catamaran with a mind boggling array of expensive fittings and gizmos, but I did note that they weren't sailing despite their extremely well equipped state. There were many other locally owned craft moored further west, but little of interest to me. I heard my phone ringing while in the lee of the point, so I fished it out from the screw-topped bucket only to find yet again a missed call from some commercial mob. Argh!
I perhaps to aggressively hardened up the sheets onto stbd. tack, heading for a mobile phone tower about due E and thrilled at Tilman's acceleration. Once clear of the point several gusts aroused my attention s I sat up on the windward seat to level her out. A few times we shouldered waves that sent spray flying across the tunnel. In the stronger gusts I laid off and took bigger waves on our quarter, I loved the feeling like a big-eased mamma in a conga train butting off kids with her assets.
We monkey's about like this over and bad across the bay several times before having a brief snack ashore and doing it all again. There were some fully crewed yachts racing across the lake, but clearly, Tilman was only one of a small handful of pleasure craft out enjoying the blow and although we seemed to constantly be ducking spray, by day's end there was only a small cup of water in the bulges.
Never one to be put off, I monitored to a launching place, slightly sheltered and to windward of a large bay. It's a great place, an ex WWII Catalina base on Lake Macquarie. No surprises, I had the place t myself. I toyed with the idea of hoisting the main alone, but being a thrillseeker, I gave it everything ensuring everything was set fairly flat.
I initially bore off downwind, I'm a sucker for anchored yachts, there were three in that direction and as I squirted past, I got some waves from those onboard tucked in behind their spray dodgers. I was little bothered by Amy showers as the spray coming off the lake was just as moist. From Rathmines I ran off into Styles Point,and the first anchored yacht there was a massive Lagoon brand catamaran with a mind boggling array of expensive fittings and gizmos, but I did note that they weren't sailing despite their extremely well equipped state. There were many other locally owned craft moored further west, but little of interest to me. I heard my phone ringing while in the lee of the point, so I fished it out from the screw-topped bucket only to find yet again a missed call from some commercial mob. Argh!
I perhaps to aggressively hardened up the sheets onto stbd. tack, heading for a mobile phone tower about due E and thrilled at Tilman's acceleration. Once clear of the point several gusts aroused my attention s I sat up on the windward seat to level her out. A few times we shouldered waves that sent spray flying across the tunnel. In the stronger gusts I laid off and took bigger waves on our quarter, I loved the feeling like a big-eased mamma in a conga train butting off kids with her assets.
We monkey's about like this over and bad across the bay several times before having a brief snack ashore and doing it all again. There were some fully crewed yachts racing across the lake, but clearly, Tilman was only one of a small handful of pleasure craft out enjoying the blow and although we seemed to constantly be ducking spray, by day's end there was only a small cup of water in the bulges.
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