Celebrating 21

Celebrating 21   …   Sun 12^th – Mon 13^th July

On Sunday we took out a family of 4 people for a 4-hour “Coastal Explorer” trip. This turned out to be exactly what I had in mind when we set up this business – beautiful weather, fabulous scenery, great sailing and lovely guests! It seems only fitting that this would be a special trip because it was our 21^st charter since being up here in Sebasco Harbor. We left the dock in light south westerly winds and quickly had all our sails up. We headed westwards for a couple of miles on our “standard” east-west route, but then turned to the south-east and were able to make one long tack all the way the end of the Cape Small peninsula. We rounded Bald Head, cutting between the mainland and a rocky ledge and caught our first glimpses of Seguin Island off to the east. (see previous post in 2012: http://www.ataleoftwochemists.blogspot.com/2012/08/seguin-island.html).

The scenery around this area is beautiful. We continued eastwards for a short while and then did a loop around Fuller Rock where we saw seals baking in the sun. This set us up for a fantastic 5-mile westerly run all the way to the end of Bailey Island. We made more than 7 knots the entire way, encountering relatively few lobster pots. At this point we planned to head northwards up the side of Bailey Island and then head back east on our “standard” route. However, the winds had grown somewhat light and from a more southerly direction, so we took a more direct north easterly line to maintain progress. When required to head due north to avoid ledges we actually managed to sail wing-on-wing. We finished the trip by cutting through the Westpoint entrance to Sebasco Harbor – which gives lovely views in the late afternoon sun.

Monday also turned out be a great day and we took 5 people over to Ragged Island on a lunch cruise. We dropped the anchor close to the rocky shore and enjoyed a peaceful lunch in smooth waters with guillemots flying around. We fed our guests humous with veggies and crackers as appetizers, sandwiches and chips (crisps) and then fruit salad and homemade banana bread for dessert. We think our lunch cruises are a real bargain for our guests!  As usual we had charming, interesting guests on this trip and because conditions were so perfect it all felt very relaxing.

As I sit here typing, we have just postponed / cancelled our lunch cruise today. It’s warm and sort of sunny, but you can’t see 100 yards because of fog. Not ideal conditions, especially when our radar is away for repair.

That’s it for now. We hope all of our readers are doing well.

p.s. not doing much (any) photography ... my free time is just too fragmented and unpredictable

Mike