Happy Birthday

7/13/2006; 12 miles; 2.5 hrs; Almost missed my Birthday sail due to storms. But we decided to go later that afternoon to the gulf side of Bahia Honda after I realized I’d rather be rained on sailing, than not rained on, not sailing. I brought a poncho for CO. The wind was barely 5 knots out of the east, so we would have to tack there against the wind and get a good down wind sail coming home. CO and I decided to take Brittan, since the wind was light.

Brittan did very good. She was even going to the other side of the boat when I would tell CO to come about, that is tacking into the wind. The wind died about a mile and half from the beach, so we decided to go back. CO worked the tiller while I played with the sails to get the most out of the breeze we had. It was a blast. Best Birthday I ever had. Everything was perfect until I realized I had gotten my bearings tangled with the sails and saw that we were not in Bogie channel but heading into a really shallow area. We made a course adjustment and realized I needed to crank the motor to get out of this shallow area before the out going tide put us on the bottom.

We made it all the way to the edge of the channel before we hit bottom so I had to pull the boat about 25 ft before it got deep enough. Good lesson learned. Check your position, then check your position, then check your position. God blessed us on my birthday.

The boat got back to the dock so it was a successful day.