The "Free Day"

Sunday morning began with a cup of coffee in my First Mate Cup, brought to me by my darling husband to the deck where I sat contemplating the sunrise. It was my favorite kind of morning.









After breakfast we bought some shrimp for our dinner from our local shrimper, John, on the Polly Anna.

The winds were from the North and NW due to hurricane Gustav which was forecast to make landfall somewhere on the coast of Louisiana the next day. We decided to take advantage of this rare opportunity of a north wind and warm weather to anchor on the north side of the Ship Channel. We had scoped out our spot in the dinghy weeks before.




We sailed up and dropped anchor just prior reaching the junction of Piper Channel, which leads off the CC Ship Channel to Island Moorings. The visibility was so good we could see the keel, prop and rudder. This is unusual here. Bruce cleaned the bottom of the boat while I floated around. It was an magical day suspended in time…this free day. Not the first day... nor our last… it was in the middle… a free day!


When the bottom cleaning was done, Bruce sped around in the dinghy for a while. I wasn’t sure we should leave the boat but after a tanker passed us in the channel and we saw no ill effects, I felt more confident and joined him for a quick trip to shore.




All too soon, it was time to go back to the slip to prepare for the shrimp boil our dockmates had planned for the evening.

We had been reluctant to have our party on Labor Day weekend, thinking that the marina would be full of tourists getting in that last big weekend of the summer. But we were wrong! Gustav evidently kept them away… we had the place relatively to ourselves. We gathered for cocktails and threw some shrimps and stuff in the boiling pot and had a feast!

The best thing about this particular party was that in bringing people together, we were amazed at how everyone fit… each person there knew the others by some means. It was a resounding success!

BYC Labor Day Weekend Ragatta

Saturday morning Bruce and I drove to Corpus Christi Marina to meet up with Mark and Brenda for a day of racing aboard Sea Flight. BYC hosted this cruisers race from CC to Ingleside. The day was perfect with winds reaching 10 to 15 kts. The bay was absolutely beautiful with light chop.

We met Mark and Brenda’s daughters, Sally and Susan as well as the latter’s new beaux, Nathan whom she had brought home to meet the parents. Nathan had never sailed before but he was a willing asset to the crew and learned very quickly. You would never know he wasn’t a part of the family.

Bruce and Mark were in racing mode so the rest of us had to snap to it to avoid bloodshed. They plotted their strategy and off we went.

Bruce gave the kids some hasty sailing pointers before the race began. Both Sally and Susan were eager to learn as their parents have only been sailors for a couple of years and the girls are happily soaking it all in. Even I had a chance to pass along some of the tricks I’ld been taught by fellow crew members when I was first learning to sail back in the Lady Jane days.

We got things going and settled in. The race had a staggered start. It was slow at first, slogging through the waves...

but when Bruce and Mark got the sails trimmed out we got some speed and it felt pretty good.

We were all sitting the rail and chattering away while the men strategized… It wasn’t a long race and it ended between markers 43 and 44. After the race, most of the boats went over to IOB for the party but we and 2 others went on up the Ship Channel to Port A.

We had not won the race but we weren’t DFL either so we spent the rest of the sail celebrating on deck.

Young Nathan was dubbed “Honorary Captain” for the afternoon. We were having a great time until well after we docked. We finally parted company to get showered and leave the Sea Flight family to entertain themselves. Bruce and I went to dinner at Pelican’s Landing but it was terrible.
We ended our day sitting out at the end of our dock listening to Larry Joe Taylor sing to us from across the marina. Mark, Brenda and the kids joined us and conversation flowed (as well as the wine) until 1 a.m. Surely some kind of record for Bruce and I.

Winding down...

Friday evening we packed up and went out to the boat for the last official (3 day) weekend of the summer…Labor Day Weekend! It had been a long and busy week and Bruce and I were both wound up tight.

We unpacked and had a sundowner Bahama Mamma on the deck before grilling a fabulous steak for dinner off the back of Elan. We weren’t ready to turn in early so we took a drive out to the jetties for a walk.

Bruce lit up a cigar. He only smokes ‘em when he feels like treating himself and I think they smell good. We sat on the rocks and enjoyed the last few moments of the day together.