What a great weekend. The weather was perfect. Wind anywhere from 9 to 17 knots. Fantastic. Usually, in June the wind starts to abate some where I sail. Well not some, entirely. It doesn’t usually reappear until the Fall. But this weekend we had cool nights and temperate days with great wind.
Friday we left the docs late to make for a small anchorage, in a protected cove on the lake. The group was 4 boats strong and we sailed south the few miles to it. We don’t do this too often, as it has just become too easy to sail from the slip and back to it late in the day. So this was somewhat of any adventure 🙂
Since the lake we sail on is man made it is the result of a dam, located on the Savannah river. There are many rivers that feed into this lake and we took the opportunity to make it as far up one as we could. The wind was mostly on our nose going up this particular fork of the lake, so we motored until we reached a bridge. Our guide, with many years experience on the lake pointed out covers that a great anchorages and which ones to avoid due to trees in the water or too much power boat traffic.
After the bridge we rafted up for lunch in one of the covers. Kids swam and while they did beers consumed; along with a few sandwiches. After lunch we motor sailed down the river back to where the lake opens up. When we arrived we had a solid 12 knots blowing across the longest fetch of the lake. Perfect. I should have thrown a reef in and reduced sail, but I didn’t. Instead I enjoyed some hard fought sailing for a few hours.
The way back to the barn had us on a broad reach and I flew the jib only. It was a very relaxing ride.