As the Diesel Rumbles to Silence….

I always forget how much I love daysailing….no place to be, nowhere to go, no tricky reef entrance waiting at the end of the day, no wondering about weather, no worries.   Clearing the marina channel this morning, the sails go up, the diesel rumbles to silence.   Aaaahhhhh, life is better already!  We point the boat on a close beam reach north and leisurely sailed up Charlotte Harbor to Punta Gorda.

For the first couple of hours, we just enjoyed the silence and the water rushing past the hull.  The wind was 11 -13 knots and the boat was sailing along at anywhere from 5 – 6 knots.  Have you ever noticed that sailing can be as mezmorizing as sitting by a babbling brook or staring into a blazing fire?   Nice.  We didn’t want to relinquish the wheel, it was so easy to steer (now that the steering isn’t stuck anymore!).

Then there were dolphins ….

Did I mention that the sailing was amazing?  I love sitting on the low side of the boat, feet dangling, getting splashed & sometimes a wake covers my feet…. I love watching the water sparkle, I love everything about today!Plus we tested a new IPad navigation app called SeaIQ – I’ll do a post soon comparing Navionics, INavX and SeaIQ — as soon as I’ve had a chance to sail with all three to see what I like and don’t like about each.   Of course, after we got back to the dock, I discovered my IPad refused to turn on … even Applecare’s tech support couldn’t figure out what’s up.  Luckily, the west coast of Florida has an Apple store less than an hour away … rather than having to have them overnight me a box, then ship it back & wait until they ship me a new one.  It’ll be hard to do my comparisons without the IPad.   Grumble.  But that’s the only thing that mars a perfect day and I refuse to let stupid electronics spoil an otherwise perfect day! Here’s a screen shot from SeaIQ:

And all too soon, we arrived at the outside marker to our marina …  But then we turned around and headed out toward Boca Grande Pass — it was just too soon to let this sail end!   🙂

Anyone else go sailing this weekend?  Next step, watching for weather to go anchor out for a few nights and work out any kinks.  We’re hoping to sail north to Sarasota and Venice in the next few days just because we’ve never sailed north.