Fully Crewed

Still Pond MD, N39 19.975 W076 28.521, June 27, 2006

Well here we sit in Still Pond, one of our favorite anchorages. The difference is that now we have David (my son) and Bobby (Dave's son) onboard. Wow this is great. Libby has been waiting for more than a year for this day.

Yesterday morning, another Westsail 32, Helen, came past in Georgetown Harbor. She swung around to come back and raft up with us. We swapped Westsail stories with Debb and Bill. They had just launched Helen after working on her for four years in their yard.

Around noon Libby and I went ashore to wait for our noon pickup by Enterprise Rent-A-Car. 12 o'clock past, then 12:30 then 1:00 and still no pickup. I was frantic. I called their office every 10 minutes but there was no answer. Finally I got through to them on the phone. The man there forgot that he was supposed to pick us up. Anyhow, we got started toward Newark Airport almost two hours behind schedule. We were supposed to be there at 17:00, and we actually made it at 17:15. Luckily, Dave's plane was even later than we were. It arrived at 17:40. The reunion was great. By the time we drove back to Maryland, and ate dinner and bought groceries and rowed all the people and cargo out to Tarwathie, it was midnight. We slept well.

This morning when I got up and looked out, there was a sailboat coming into Georgetown with a completely ripped main sail. It had one of those fancy sails that rolls up inside the mast. It appeared that the sail fouled halfway up the mast, but the crew pulled it out anyhow. The bottom third and top third of the sail were deployed while the middle third remained inside the mast. That must have been an expensive mistake, costing the owner as much as $5,000. It is also a reminder of why one doesn't want fancy gadgets for offshore sailing. If the mainsail failed like that at sea, the trip in to get it repaired could be very long indeed.

Today, we had intervals of fair weather and wind interspersed with rain showers. I lost count on how many showers rained on us today, six or seven times. Never mind. Dave and Bobby got a least of taste of sailing on Tarwathie. Dave turned out to be one of those speed daemons. He heeled us over 50 degrees and thought that it was great fun. Bobby wasn't so sure that was fun, so Libby gave the order, "No more heeling more than 20 degrees for the rest of the day." So even if it rains for the rest of the week (which it may do), at least we had some good sailing hours.

Tomorrow we head back to Georgetown and Wednesday night or Thursday morning we'll start driving up to Vermont. Libby and I rented a mooring for Tarwathie so we won't have to worry about her.

Bobby and Dave send regards to Cathy.

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