Sail day

Jim from the WBA came over again Friday, this time for a sail on the Core Sound.  Gerard got his Shimmy 12 on the water, and put on an impressive sailing display getting out of the harbour despite the wind blowing almost directly on the nose out of the narrow channel.  He did have a spot of bother though, getting his oarlock,which he was using as a fender cleat, caught under the dock and breaking off part of the coaming.  (Yesterday I helped him fix it so my guilt about leaving him and heading off is now assuaged, and hopefully his oarlock sockets are as good as new.)

While we were waiting for him, Jim steered while I rowed the Core Sound out towards Altona Reef, where we could see a seal slowly working his way round the reef.  When we saw Gerard starting we headed back in, and the wind picked up enough for us to sail, more or less retracing our steps from the kayak expedition the day before.

Gerard took some great photos of the Core Sound in action.

We got buzzed by the seaplane again, sailed through a mass seabird event, and got to see a seal demonstrating how they get up onto the channel marker.   There was a huge bull seal tilting the buoy over to one side.  A smaller seal leapt out of the water, successfully landed on the buoy, but got chased off.  Seal went to the other side, tilting way high out of the water, and tried unsuccessfully to leap up on that side. But we got a good idea of the technique.   It is a great sail over to the marker and back, and the wind kicked up so we hooted back round 5 knots, getting up to 6.8 knots.

Just about all sailing days are good, but some are magic. This was one of the magic days.