First Raft Up

Friends of ours from the marina are first-season sailors in their '78 Hunter 30, and seeing how so many people at this marina were so helpful in getting us to the point where we are now, it has seemed appropriate for us to help them get their sea legs so to speak. Besides, we just like their company. This weekend they'd asked if we would mind coving out together so they could have their first raft-up experience. We sailed s-l-o-w-l-y over to the cove by the beach across the lake so their kids could dinghy over to the beach to swim, and ended up having a good dinner complete with entertainment watching the power boat antics as they loaded their noisy craft on their trailers at the boat ramp, the wind kind enough to keep the bugs away and turn us 180° at just the right time to enjoy the sunset from the hammock in the bow. This morning after a good breakfast of eggs, sausage, muffins, yogurt and granola, we swam some more, pushed the dinghy (yes, pushed as in Tim and I swam behind the dinghy with our fins on - twin propulsion) over to the beach so the kids could play and after being clobbered on the shoulder by a large fish jumping out of the water (no kidding I wish I had the video), we headed back over to the boats.

 We had a pretty challenging time getting out of the cove under sail as the wind was right on our nose and we have a lot of places here we just can't sail through. Lake Carlyle is like a minefield of obstacles that you have to navigate around, so it's a pretty good training ground. Islands submerged 2 feet under the water, old fuel silos, house foundations, trees, farm equipment...you name it we have it. If you can sail here I'm convinced you can sail anywhere. But sail we did until the wind totally died. We had a wonderful weekend with good friend and it just doesn't get much better than that.