It was finally time to begin sharing Seas The Day (425) with guests. The natural choice was Jie and Tao - friends from work who have hit it off with Vicky and who have been out sailing with me before during this season.
We started the day at Waterman's Crab House where the three of them picked apart a bunch of crabs and I had my normal crab cake sandwich - I hate to play with my food.
Here's a rhetorical question... how long will it take Vicky to have had enough crabs?? They used to be a treat we had a few times a year, but now that our boat is on the Chesapeake, they're virtually unlimited. I'm not too worried as picking a crab has to be one of the "negative calorie" ways to eat - you expend much more energy pounding and cracking and digging than you can possibly consume per unit of time.
We then proceeded to Osprey Point Marina and boarded Seas The Day. At this point, I'd like to say that we had a wonderful and smooth excursion and the pictures will tell the story - and that's mostly true, but focusing your attention on learning and sailing a new boat up to now is one thing... doing it while trying to take place in conversations with friends is another.
I found out.
As far as I can tell, there were three major sailing blunders during this excursion.
1. We were going around the exit to Swan Creek and heading to pump out at Gratitude Marina, we suddenly stopped moving. I had drifted too far to starboard and had finally run aground. Checking the tide, it was dropping and my first thought was "Great... our first time out will consist of sitting here for 4 hours". But I remembered Captain Gary telling me that most of the "ground" in the Swan Creek is loose mud and you can usually power through it. I was able to.
2. We "kissed" one of the green buoys. We were sailing back into the entrance at Gratitude. I saw the green buoy and noted it, then someone had a question about the chart plotter and suddenly I heard Vicky yell. Otto was steering and reluctant to yield to me without me pressing the correct button. I was able to execute a sort of "roll-off" maneuver, but contact was made. Fortunately, there was no damage or marks left on the boat (probably cushioned by the birdshit coating the buoy). That being said, I'm sure I appeared inelegant in my sailing abilities (perhaps intoxicated as well) to my fellow sailors out there.
3. Speaking of appearing drunk... shortly afterward, I was trying to bring in the mainsail and couldn't get it to come in. We were already well into the approach (around Red #4) and I just couldn't get the reefing line to engage... it was always slipping on the auto-winch. There wasn't enough room to maneuver and we ended up changing directions a couple of times with the sails flapping before I realized I had opened the wrong brake.
Those aside, you can tell from the photos below that it was cool... low 60s up to mid-60s. Both Tao and Jie took my advice to dress in lots of layers and seemed glad that they did.
Vicky wasted no time in getting them up to the foredeck cushion. Everyone now knows that we really purchased a foredeck cushion that happened to come with a boat.
I'm not going to try to guess who took what photo from here on in... everyone seemed to be grabbing my camera and using it. Some come from Vicky's cell phone as well. Blunders aside, it was just a fun day on the water with some good friends.
(That hat really is horrible. It's clearly not protecting my neck.)
Finally, it was time to dock. I gave Jie my camera and asked her to get the photos needed for any insurance claims. She took a couple of me before focusing on Tao while we were backing down the fairway.
I managed to get Seas The Day in again without damage and with Andy's help, we got her tied up. I'm still working on my final dockline arrangements. This time I added another spring-line to keep her back far enough to step off.
As sunset approached, we wanted to get some photos of Tao in good light for a project she is working on. Of course with this crowd, it quickly expanded to a general photoshoot of everyone.
After finally getting all the cushions stowed (we weren't staying the night - took some ribbing on that one), we sat for an hour or so in the salon and had some snacks and a great conversation.
Oh... and spent what seemed like an eternity cleaning up all the nooks and crannies on the salon table from the drink I spilled.
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