Dusted off the Sea Pearl

Saturday, the rainclouds parted and the lightning subsided long enough for me to drag my Sea Pearl 21 sailboat north of town to Fellows Lake. The wind was supposed to get pretty hairy through the day, so I went early and was on the water by 8am. It was still blowing in the mid teens with higher gusts. I sailed back and forth in front of the marina most of the time. The wind just kept picking up and even though I had a 3/1 reef in the sails, it still wasn't the most comfortable way to start my sailing season. By 10am, I was pretty over it. I checked the weather on my phone and it registered winds of 21+ MPH for where I was at. I rounded up, reefed the sails and rowed in to the dock.

It was nice to be back aboard the boat, but I need to pick a better day next time. With all the wet weather we've had, the good days have been hard to come by.

One weird thing that happened while I was out, I was tacking across to the south side of the northern arm of the lake when I saw a bluejay flying out over the water. It flew from out of the north and across to the south side where I was sailing. They are fairly heavy flyers and fall quite a bit between wing strokes and it didn't look like it was going to make it to the far side. About 30 feet from the bank, it crashed into the lake. Startled, I started to wonder how I could get over to it in time to save it and also keep the boat from going over in 20+MPH gusts. Somehow it regained it's strength and managed to get clear of the water before I could make it over to it. It splashed out of the water into the air and flew to some trees lining the lake's edge.