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| Annapolis |
WooHoo! It's back! Wednesday Night Racing in Annapolis! And I am so psyched for a new season. I'm on a new boat with a new skipper (very experienced sailor), new crew, & new position. All of us have sailed & raced fairly extensively & it looks to be a good mix of folk. Even more exciting for me is the opportunity to be on main. It makes me more valuable as a crew member in that I have the ability to pretty much slip in wherever needed (my Wednesday night ride doesn't do weekend regattas). Since I don't have a designated boat for the weekend regattas yet, I have to find boats who need crew. Unfortunately Xing Fu & I missed the Crew Listings Party from Spin Sheet last week because my son was in a crew (rowing) regatta in Chestertown. Excited for him to be participating in a great sport that I did competitively in college, but bummed that I couldn't meet skippers looking for crew for sailing in weekend regattas.
But with two races down so far, I'm so happy to be out there learning a new sail. Just hope I can figure it out eventually--and I hope the skipper has patience. The season is young....
Of a great sailing weekend--did a distance race from Annapolis to Gibson Island on Saturday (little to no wind) & then on Sunday did an around the buoys race on the Magothy River. Kinda nostalgic for me because Dobbins Island is there. When I was a little girl we used to sail to Dobbins & anchor out, row over to the island (back then you could go on the island--now it's eroding so people can't go there), gather sassafras that my grandmother would brew into tea as we continued our cruise down the Chesapeake. In fact, when I was in first grade I drew a picture for my grandparents of us at Dobbins. See it above. In it, Dobbins is in the background, a sailboat with "26 Footer" written on the mainsail, and me & my cousin swimming in the bay. Also included are the requisite sea nettles which have wrapped themselves around my cousin while I swam ahead of them. I gave this picture to my grandparents & it hung in their house until they died. Now it is mine & I treasure that memory.
Saturday evening after-race party was great, part of the crew had her boat brought up as a "floating hotel" and they rafted next to Bump. After drinking the requisite Dark n' Stormy, having a hot dog, & saying hi to many people from the J/30 fleet that I've come to know, we all settled down below & decided that we were the left behinds after the Rapture. Which makes sense because we're a bunch of rowdy sailors. I don't think I've laughed that hard in quite a while.
Great wind on Sunday, especially the second race. We came in third--for me it was a busy day as I trimmed jib & spinnaker so I had no rest on the upwind leg or the downwind leg. Not complaining--just sore. In fact, I loved that I was so busy--it feels good to be active all the time but I'm sure that if I had to maintain that over a three-day regatta I'd be in serious trouble I think. Sunday was particularly nice because Xing Fu joined us--trimmed main. I always enjoy sailing with him--makes doing what I love just that much more fun.
I'm glad it's sailing season again--as the sun set on Saturday, a man stood at the end of the center dock at the Gibson Island Yacht Squadron & played the bagpipes--what an amazing image to remind me of a great weekend with my awesome sailing friends!
