It’s A Little Sporty

We had a busy final week preparing to leave St.Pete. The to do list is done with a new list started.

We had a great lunch catching up with Dutch Wharf friends, Chuck and Chris. They are just a couple of the wonderful people we met there over the years.

University of South Florida sponsored a science fair last weekend. The focus was on Stem – targeting girls and ocean research. An interesting boat, a 24 foot autonomous drone that sails in all weather collects data for various scientific research groups.

We had a few great sails before we left The Harborage. We took a fellow B dock power boater, Renee, out for her 2nd sail. St Petersburg Yacht Club hosted a 200 boat opti regatta. We sailed around reminiscing when Eric, our son was in junior sailing and my husband ran CSYC’s program.

We left Tuesday afternoon with a buddy boat, Ken and Champ from CSYC to travel 70 miles to Gasparilla. All morning the boaters were saying, it’s a sporty one. When you leave on a trip there is never a perfect weather window and this trip was no exception. We left in fair weather with a reefed main and jib. The wind died down so Eric unreefed the main. Then things got sporty when we got hit by a squall. Another sail change, reef the main, put up the staysail, and drop the jib. We were doing 7 knots with 1 knot of current. We sailed into the inter-coastal and anchored for the night at Long Boat Key. We were rewarded on the trip crossing paths with dolphins and different birds.