First day sailing

Monday Afternoon on a small island off of the coast

Yesterday was kind of uninteresting.  The day we get the boat is always the least interesting day.  Lots of hurry up and wait.  Lots of introduction to the area, the boat, the rules, etc.

Today has been a great day with some ups and downs.  I have already changed my clothes four times because the weather is so variable.  Last night some weather blew in and we got quite cool in the boat so we needed to throw on a blanket.  I have never needed to do that on a boat before !  When we woke up it looked cloudy and gray so I put on long paints and a warm shirt and sweater.  I went to the bathhouse to take a shower and by the time I got out, it was already warmer so I took off the sweater and changed to a lighter top.  We needed to run around the port and do some errands and by the time we got back the sun was breaking threw and it was quite warm so I changed in to shorts.  Who knew that I would become obsessed with clothing at such an advanced age ??

We headed out of the marina and out into the Adratic.  They name their winds here.  There are four main winds.  The preferred one is the Mistral and that is the norm at this time of year.  It comes out of the north east and runs along the coast.  That is not the one we got today.  We got the Bora (I think), which is the opposite.  It comes from the south west and can bring stormy weather.

We didn’t get any storms but the wind was quite brisk.  Bill started out with a reef in the main and the genoa only partially out.  But as we went the wind moderated and we ended up with the main and genoa fully deployed.   We had a great sail and moved along quite nicely (around 5 knots for most of the time). 

But when the wind started dropping, the ocean swells also started growing and we both got quesy.  Not actually sea-sick but not feeling well and it definitely made it harder to do all of the work (which is mostly done by Bill).

We found a nice harbor on the secluded side of the island and Bill is resting now.  We will probably swim later and go in to the town to see if we can find dinner.  (I don’t know if there are restaurants here.  It’s a pretty small place.  But if not we have enough food on the board that we will be okay.)