May 30: 17.5 Nautical Miles

Nice sail today! After all the nasty weather we've been having, I decided to take advantage of the break in the weather, so I slipped out of the office at 1000 and headed to the boat.

When I arrived, the wind was light, so I puttered about the boat for a bit. Around 1130 the wind seemed to be building, so I hoisted the main and headed out. I had a nice light air beat up the north end ofClapboard, then reached off a bit for a close-reach between the island and Cow Island Ledge, and then on toward Portland. The wind was variable between perhaps 5 or 6 knots and as much as 12 or 15. Nice!

As I hardened up around Fort Gorges, the wind really seemed to be funneling down the ship channel, and seemed to be 18 or 20 knots. I was showing full main, and soon had the side decks buried! I decided this was a bit more than I really needed to be dealing with solo, so I reached off and had a nice sail throught the slot between Fort Gorges and Little Diamond Island, called Diamond Roads. Once in the lee of the Diamond Islands, the wind lightened dramatically, and I had a nice light air reach back to Falmouth, ghosting along at a quiet but lovely 3.5 knots.

As I approached Falmouth, I saw that Tim had arrived and Glissando was just pulling away from her mooring. Tim and I had a nice sail together counter-clockwise around Clapboard. I was pleased to see that Dasein was sailing very well, and seemed to be just a bit faster than Glissando this day. In fact at one point I had to sail around in a circle to let him catch up. Not that he was far behind, but I was enjoying sailing very close by--we were having nice conversation while sialing--plus, I thought he deserved a little ribbing after braggin to the whole world about oufooting us last week! ;-P

Eventually though the wind gave up, and once we were going 0.0 knots, we gave up too, and motored in. I hfound our engine a bit tough to start up, as we hadn't run it in almost 2 weeks, and the batteries were low. Eventually I got her cranked though. I'll have to check on our solar panel output...

Nice Early Sail