Watching the Wind Come In
I spent last Tuesday doing something I’ve never been able to do: spend *all* day sailing, in no hurry to get anyway. Usually, if I’m out for some pleasure cruising, there’s a time limit because the person I’m with has to be somewhere by a certain time. If I’m all day on the boat, it’s because I need to get it from point ‘A’ to point ‘B’.
But Tuesday was different. I’m between contracts, so my time is (mostly) my own. The weather reports showed last Tuesday as what may be our last really nice (read: temps in the upper 70’s) day of the year. Wednesday, it was to rain all day long. Days after that would show highs in the 60’s. Not bad, I know. But not the warm sun on your face almost perfect temp sailing weather.
I did have a goal in mind. I was heading out to New Point Comfort lighthouse again, at the mouth of Mobjack Bay, on the far side of Gloucester. It’s a pleasant little ride and not extremely far away.
The trip was beautiful. I had to motor most of the way out of the York River. But, as usual, when I reached the mouth of the York, the winds picked up and we were sailing. The direction was even good to sail most of the way over to the lighthouse.
The way back, as usual, was a bit challenging. It’s shallow between Mobjack and York River. There’s a cut through that you can take, but it’s narrow and I often don’t see the markers. I timed the trip so I could do this during high tide, and this helped. But I did keep a close eye to my depth finder and Navionics disply. I did get nervous as the depth got down to 13 feet and lower. I think it stopped at 9 before it started going up again.
Once I reached the York again, I saw an interesting site. I could see the wind patterns on the water.
Now, I know the theory of this, and I know what you’re supposed to look for. The water appears darker where the wind is stronger. Where whitecaps appear, the wind is stronger still. But I had never seen it so clearly as I did that day. There were ripples where I was, and there had been most of the day, given the perfect wind I’d been riding in. But ahead of me, the water appeared darker, and it looked even darker still further on.
So I was ready, and I adjusted for it. I let out the sails before I reached the darker water. I gauged the wind and adjusted accordingly. It worked well, I felt in control of my boat. Before I reached the whitecaps, I turned into the wind, pulling in the main so it didn’t bang back and forth, turned on the autopilot, and pulled the jib in partway. I let the main back out, turned off the wind, and headed into the whitecapped water.
I spent my time getting back the channel that led to the marina. It felt good to be out there practicing my skills.
And it just felt good being sailing and not worry about the time.