May 29, 2005 | 3.8 Nautical Miles

Sunday I headed down to the boat by myself to take care of yet more miscellaneous projects on board, but when I arrived at the club at around 1100, I could see a nice breeze filling in and the idea of taking a sail filled my thoughts.

As the launch pulled up to the boat, there was a nice surprise waiting„blood and fish guts everywhere. Grrr. There has never been a bird interested in my boat before. Why now? Whatever. After cleaning up, I switched my old mainsheet out for a new one, and replaced the old jib sheets with the one-season old main sheet, allowing me to use a single line for the sheet, minimizing the bulk of knots at the clew. I quickly got the boat ready, and cast off.

The sail ended up being quite brief, as I had a nice 5 knot close reach out of the anchorage towards Portland, but was troubled by the rumblings of thunder in the distance. The sky still looked fairly benign, but I decided to turn around and head back in. As I worked my way back downwind in the relatively light air, the sky began to darken more and eventually I decided to pack it in and get back to the mooring before the storm, which I did, but by the time I rode the launch back in to the dock the sky was amazingly dark, and I felt lucky to get ashore before any torrential rains hit.