Singlehanding

Once I said goodbye to Bob & co. I couldn’t resist jumping into the water. It was hot, practically windless, so I would have to start motoring anyway. According to Bob, the forecast called for light winds, so once I sensed that there was a bit of a wind, unfortunately blowing in my face, I unrolled the sails and started tacking down the bay making slow progress to the southwest. I talked to my parents, setting the phone aside to do the tacks and enjoyed the peace and quiet.

The wind cut off completely when I saw a huge trailer park on the port side. That was not a sight I wanted to see for a long time, so on went the motor and a couple of miles later the wind picked up and I went back to leisurely tacks.

The forecast was not quite right: the wind picked up to 12-13 knots and now I was moving. The main had to be flattened to reduce its belly, Salty Ginger was at its best. And then as I was preparing to tack the wind shifted by a lot and picked up to 18 knots. The genoa got reefed while the autopilot was steering, I tacked and then my course was only 30 instead of 60 degrees off to the entrance to St Peter’s inlet. The gusts would actually give me a lift which was quite nice.

It wasn’t that windy anymore, but the boat was still doing 6.5-7 knots, so I didn’t consider unrolling the genoa — I was sailing fast enough. With some 5 miles left to the inlet the wind shifted even more. First by 10 degrees, then 10 more and then 10 yet again. Well, that was awfully nice of the wind gods, but that was not the final act. Once I did the last tack and pointed almost directly to the entrance, the wind picked up again to 18 knots, did a few gusts to 20 and steadied. Good thing I didn’t have the full foresail!

I started to think about the right tactic to pick up the mooring line. I haven’t done it yet alone in 18 knots of wind. But as I got closer to the marina, the wind got quieter, and in St Peter’s there it was practically windless, so picking up the line wasn’t difficult, although I did miscalculate my approach a bit.

The dinghy had a lot of water from all the spray, in the cabin was a disarray (I was expecting light winds and didn’t do a thorough job of stowing things away).

I went into town to buy some rice to complement the mackerel that Mark caught a couple of days ago, but it was half past seven and the store was already closed. Curiously enough, the liquor store was still open, so I got some white wine and went back to the boat. I had no interest in exploring the local cuisine.

Ready for the next crew

My sister should be arriving in a couple of hours with her family, so I did have to do a bit of clean up. I finally washed the salt off the walls in the forward cabin: Mark and I didn’t close the hatch thoroughly on our passage from Ingonish and a big wave went into the tiny slit (gives you an idea of the spray that was flying). The fridge, the floors and the heads are clean. I like to be on a clean boat!

Another interesting surprise was the high pressure pump for the desalinator. It refused to work 2 days ago, but when I turned it off to try to troubleshoot what’s going on, it decided that to build water pressure. I’m not a fan of things fixing themselves, cause clearly something is off, and now I hope that it will work when I will need to pickle the system at the end of this cruise.

Today at 3 a swim is scheduled in St Peter’s canal: swimmers will be allowed to jump into the lake, the lock will be closed and then opened on the ocean side. Julia and Alina are also interested in doing that, so I’ll go find out where I can register the 3 of us to take part in the annual event.