Spring Sailing Is Mighty Fine!

My, we've had some fine weather lately. Yesterday, Adam and I rode bikes down to the town marina, sat on our usual bench and looked at boats. It was just right for my light-weight crop pants and NO socks.

This is one of our favorite dates.  We're easy to please.

Monday is Adam's day off during the week, so we went sailing. The wind was just right and the sky was blue.

Today he taught Julia a bit more about hanking on the sails. We want her to learn how to sail herself.

And lookie who else came with us today! Sandy is a great sailing dog. She's relaxed and enjoyed the ride.

When we have to move around a lot, managing sails, or if the water were choppy, she goes into the cabin. She likes the shade in there.

I just had to include a photo of this house. I'm sure they intended a porthole look, but we call it the R2D2 house :)

I love being on the river. It's one of the most relaxing things we do. Well, as long as the wind isn't too strong, and it's not cold.

If we looked out toward Morehead, the clouds looked like this.

But if we looked up the Neuse toward New Bern, we saw this:

Sandy snoozed through it all.

My top speed (I was at the helm) was 6.2 mph. Not bad. We sailed 9.5 miles in about 3 hours.

We sailed across the river, found the Smith Creek marker that serves as (and turns into) the Inland Waterway. We got pretty close to the other side. The depth was 8 feet, and I decided I felt comfortable turning around. But I could imagine sailing over there for a summer day, putting the ladder over the edge, having the kids swim, or take the dinghy in to the beach, maybe taking along supper to eat there. There were some fine-looking beaches across the river.

So we turned about and decided to go up river. The wind picked up nicely. We heeled over quite a bit until I was uncomfortable, and we turned toward Oriental. The feel of the tiller when the wind is full and the sails are full and the tiller is pulling hard against it -- it's rather exhilarating, but after a bit of that, I have to stop. I am not a racer. These folks were behind us, with a bigger boat, and were gaining on us. See how they're heeled over? They also came about soon after this photo.

We turned our noses toward home. Here's one of the markers.

The waterfront homes in Oriental -- home, sweet home. Well, we don't exactly live in one of those houses - haha! But any house in Oriental is a good place to live!