Weekend Visitors

Saturday was the big pig roast at the Boulder Yacht Club. They started cooking Friday night. A whole frozen pig, band sawed along the backbone into two parts, was flopped into a huge, outdoor smoker. There was one vat of wood to keep the fire going and another vat of wood soaking in water to keep the smoke going. Some good folks worked through the night and they cooked that pig for about 16 hours, keeping it moist with some kind of marinade. It was a wonderful dinner, a good time, and that may have been the best-cooked pig I ever tasted. The weekend’s sailing, however, was not so wonderful. Melanie joined us as our first official guest on Nomad. Saturday morning dawned cool, clear and just about dead calm. With Melanie onboard we gave it gallant try, but alas, no wind is no wind. Even our big geniker couldn’t find much traction in the light airs, finding just enough wind for us to hold steerageway and not much else. Still, being away from shore is always fun so we spent a few hours drifting slowly and enjoyed a good visit with our daughter. She stayed for the party and spent the night on Nomad with us, becoming our first overnight guest as well.

 

The “20% chance of rain” forecast for last night woke me around 2 am, the cold drops falling through the open port and landing on my bald head. We closed up the boat as much as we needed to stay dry and finished out the night trapped between the sound of water pooling and then pouring off our canvas cover onto the upper deck and carp munching on our hull. The change in weather did gave us hope that the winds today would be better. Kim and Steve are Catherine and Mary’s other “Dampas” and were at the marina bright and early this morning to join us on Nomad. They have never been on a cabin sailboat before and Deb and I were really looking forward to sharing the day with them. Melanie stayed as well,though her original plan had been to head for home this morning. She was hoping to get a little better sail today than yesterday provided.

 

Which is exactly what she got, a little better sail, very little better. Hoping to show all of our guests how much fun sailing could be we flew the geniker again but no wind is still no wind. About two hours out the breeze filled in just a little and we actually started to leave a small wake behind us, making maybe 2 or 2 ½ knots. We managed to get across the lake and back. Approaching the home marina we found a steady parade of boats making their way out onto the lake. Kim and Steve had a little more time so we tacked back out into the lake and for a while sailed center boat in a line of three abreast, which was pretty cool. With our big sail up we were even the fastest boat, (That won’t happen very often!) though none of us was actually going very fast. After a while we headed in, firing up the engine to make it back to the marina. By then all of boats that had filed out into the lake were sitting around motionless, looking for all the world like a pack of giant seagulls all sitting around in the glassy water. In the end though, it was a calm weekend on the lake, which makes for poor sailing.

 

We did have great visiting though, and discovered once again that a poor day of sailing is still better than a good day in an office, or cutting a yard, or doing about anything else; with the possible exceptions of visiting kids and grandkids. A day on a sailboat, talking kids and grandkids, is a good day indeed!