The plan was to sail just past the Portofino Towers to raft up with a couple of other sailors from the marina. We set sail around 9am with about 5 knots of wind that occasionally dropped to nothing. As we poked along we decided to sail West to Ft. Pickens, drop anchor, have lunch, and take Blake around the fort. Unfortunately the wind and current increased dramatically after setting the hook.
We had lunch, assessed the situation, and could see dark clouds in the West moving East. Carol pulled up the weather radar and sure enough we had a huge blob moving quickly toward us.
We decided to head back to the marina and hauled in the hook. It took about 1.5 hours to get back to the marina, but we missed the majority rain and only caught the light stuff. Shortly after tying off, the bottom fell out of the sky. So it appeared that we made the right decision to head back in. The weather reports only called for a 20% chance of rain, which around here means no chance of rain. Oh well, maybe next weekend will be better.
With all of the ugly weather we’ve had recently, it has been a while since we’ve had the chance to really sail and get in an overnighter.
Finally this weekend we headed out and sailed to Ft. McRee.
We towed “The Force” with us for the weekend.
There was a regatta happening.
Blake and I cruised to shore to get his boat ready for sailing.
Blake and Ben sailing.
Ralph (Captain of s/v Nightwatch) dropped his sailing dink in and came over for a race.
Who’s winning?
Cruising back to shore.
Carol tried her hand at sailing and did really well. She had a lot of fun too!
Can you find Carol sailing in this picture?
On a previous overnighter at McRee, we met a couple named Bob and Sam with m/v Splash when they cruised in their dink over to say “hi” as we sat at anchor. Months have gone by and we ran into them again Saturday evening. We cruised over to Splash for evening cocktails after dinner and enjoyed the conversation.
It was a beautiful evening.
Pogo enjoyed her Saturday very much as she got to run around the island, play with other dogs, and swim. Unfortunately we didn’t get any photos of her fun, but Carol did get a picture of Pogo in hangover state this morning.
It was a great weekend and we look forward to many more like it as the weather calms down and the temps cool off.
We hope to make it to Pirate’s Cove on Labor Day weekend, weather pending.
We dropped Blake’s boat “The Force” into the water on Thursday evening the 13th. We had hoped for a nice sailing weekend, so we could sail with ‘Private Stock Too’ over to Pirates Cove, but it wasn’t meant to be. We headed out Friday and made about an hour of headway when the weather discouraged us from continuing with us turning around to head back to port. Private Stock Too made the trip reporting a nice sail there, but awful weather on their return.
We ended up keeping ‘The Force’ in the water for the weekend, though the weather really wasn’t ever good enough to sail it. Carol did take it out for about 10 minutes, but the current was too much, so she came back to the dock.
We still had a great time at the marina. Conrad and Roxanne made it over from Louisiana to hang out on their boat, so they joined us for BBQ pulled pork that Carol made on Saturday.
Carol’s parents made it down to join us for dinner as well. Brice ,then Ken and Sherie (Private Stock Too), showed up for cocktails with Ken bringing his guitar for some impromptu Karaoke.
We finally called it quits about midnight. Carol, Blake, and I stayed on Monomoy for the night and headed home this morning for coffee and breakfast.
We didn’t get any real sailing in over the weekend, but we still had a great time. Now if we can just dodge these upcoming tropical cyclones, then perhaps we’ll get another chance at sailing to Pirates Cove.
Not much to post for this trip. We headed out about 10am and returned by 11am to grill hotdogs and sip beer at the dock. The weather quickly turned bad with thunderstorms cruising in. We here lots of boats were caught out on the bay during the squall and it wasn’t fun.
Our marina’s customer appreciation party was later that evening, which we attended and had a blast!
We have a new sailing addition to the family. If you’ve been keeping up with our blog, you will recall that on July 4 we sailed past the Jr Sailing Olympics happening on Pensacola Bay. At that time, Blake (my son) recognized that the kids sailing were about his own age and he then asked if he could have his own boat to learn to sail. After that, I set out to find him a boat that would work well as a beginner boat, but yet wouldn’t have a lot of money into just in case he ran it into rocks or decided that he didn’t want to sail on his own just yet after-all.
Fast forward about a month and I received an email from MikeG over at SailingPensacola.com who said he had an old Naples Sabot that his son was too big for and he would just like to recover his garage space. The boat did need a little fiberglass work, a leeboard, running rigging, and a mainsail. My brother Brice and I went over Monday to take it off Mike’s hands.
Blake and I spent Tuesday evening making the minor fiberglass repair, fabricated a leeboard, and even fabricated our own mainsail. Blake christened thee ‘The Force’. We still need to paint and pick up a trailer to transport, but the vessel is seaworthy.
Brice came over Wednesday morning to pick us and ‘The Force’ up with his pickup. We then headed to Bayou Grande in Navy Point for a test sail.
Here Blake and I are getting situated.
Blake’s at the helm, although you can’t tell from the pic.
We sailed back in so Blake could take his Uncle Brice out for a sail.
Here’s a video. Keep in mind that this is a Jr Sailing boat, so it will sail (and sit) much better with just Blake in it. We plan to have me follow in our dinghy next time and let him sail by himself.
Welcome to s/v Monomoy's blog. This site is a journal of sorts in regards to sailing and maintaining our 1987 Hunter 37.5 named "Monomoy".Contact the Captain at: bharris [at] RationalRealty.com
