Went on two more trips after over a month of no boating. This was a while back, in August probably, so I don’t remember it perfectly now.
One trip contained me, Paul, and Jamie. There were a ton of sailboats out there, so much that it seemed to me, who was steering, to be like an obstacle course. Most were out a ways from shore. We headed out to them, and when we got near the big array of them, the wind died down a lot, so much that we could hardly move until occasional gusts came along. We saw boats back near shore moving along just fine, so we headed back there. Indeed, there was a much stronger wind. It got rather strong at some points, and we were really able to move along. We saw a windsurfer well out from shore. I’ve never seen one near that far out before. At one point he fell over. He was very hard to see from afar, so we went over by him. He was struggling to get back up, but after several attempts, finally made it. We soon went back in, as Jamie needed to go I believe.
That was Sunday. The Thursday following that, me, Paul, Beth (Paul’s girlfriend), and Ally all went out. It was mighty chilly and windy. I was very glad I brought my windbreaker, but everyone else hadn’t, I believe. They were quite layered though. Beth and Ally both went inside the cabin for a while as we were heading back in. It was a short trip, as we went out late and it got dark quick. We did get to watch the sun set. A racing group went out just ahead of us as we went out. There was a lot of them, and they all went around doing various things. Most of them had spinnakers up at one point. We ran pretty close accross ones path when it was heading back in. As I sayed, it was rather windy, and we were really cruising and healing with both sails up. At one point while I was at the helm, a gust combined with a slight turn sent us tilting quite far over. Beth said the rail was in the water. I quickly let out my sail and Paul scrambled to release the jib. We then lowered it down. This reduced our speed a ton and removed almost all the heel. The way back in was rather dark, which always makes it hard.