Wind

Cue creepy music. We anchored in the north east conner of Opunohu Bay along with almost every other boat that crossed the Pacific from the Americas. (big exaggeration but it paints the right picture.) It was a tiny anchorage with reefs all around and a very squirrely wind, a perfect recipe for doom (dun dun duuuuun). As it turned out we had two lovely days there with no incident. On Sunday night somewhere around 11 the wind started to build and the rain started driving sideways from the east. I went into the cockpit to make sure everything was lashed down and stowed and stayed a little longer to watch the wind instrument. 30, 32, 35 knots; it was creeping higher. Then I looked up in time to see a massive blue hull grinding down our port side. “Holy Shit!” I yelled “we have been hit, Vick get up here.” I watched in startled terror for a moment as our outer lower shroud was plucked like a guitar string, twaaaaang then saw the dinghy (which had just been smooshed between the two boats) recoiling. A moment later the dinghy’s bow was 10’ up in the air. I rushed to the shroud to fend but the blue boat was already receding, “crap, it’s going to hit the panel” but Vick was already there, lifting the precious solar panel out of harms way. As the blue boat departed the wind caught its bow and sent the stern on one last mission of destruction. It missed our self steering vane by inches and was gone. ...

“Ya think we should go out sailing tonight?” This kind of question only has one right answer. I checked with Vick quickly and when I got the okay I popped back up the companion way to give that right answer. Thirty minutes or so later Ruby, Olive, Victoria, and I joined Chris on her Ranger 26 for an early evening sail. The wind was howling in the harbor so we donned our foulies and embarked with a week’s worth of snacks and things to distract the kids. We motored out the channel and set the sail in about 2 seconds flat. Chris had her all set up for a reef, and within another minute we had the genny out and the main tied down. I love smaller keel boats. We had an exhilarating beat upwind towards the Berkeley Pier and then tacked and fell off to a reach that tucked us in the lee of Treasure Island. Once we got on a starboard tack everything settled down and we took hoods off and loosened our coat collars. ...

Victoria, Ruby, Olive, Jacob, Kate, Michael, and I left the dock at Emery Cove around noon on Friday for a 2 night stay at Alaya Cove, Angel Island. We’ve made this trip twice before but never with company. I decided to fill up the third tank (for an alleged total of 110 galons) just in case. We did our shopping the night before and got everything ship shape early on Friday morning for our guest’s 9am arrival. As expected it took a few hours to get Kate and her family moved in, and we took the opportunity to shower and pack a few more last minute maintenance tasks in. ...