Re: Sailboat Racing(David)

Ahoy Maties! Oh phooey, speaking of denizens of the deep(killer stingrays and such), now I'm regretting not diving into the water when I had a chance while we were achored off the cliffs off Santa Catalina Island on Monday,with me swim googles,snorkle, and swim fins, etc.all laid out and ready to don. The stormy forcast for the crossing back was a bit over rated, and we had to untangle a whole Sea-Hunt's worth of kelp to get our anchor freed before we left. We reefed (not unlike reefer madness, no...shortened) the mainsail a'fore we weighed anchor, and the wind was whistling thru the rigging and our ears when we left just shy of noon, and the seas and waves building ominously but it calmed down by the time we got mid channel, and we happenstanced to rondezvooz with a friend's Catalina 27 (a bigger faster boat)that caught up to me from my stern, we slowed down and took photos of each other. He stopped when we got to Palos Verdes, as the wind settled down, to shake out his reefs, and chased after me. After my first matie nearly fell overboard while coming back into the cockpit after going foward, we decided to forego shaking out ours, and he went below for a snooze, I raced on with carefull attention to trim, and then Eric came back up and we set our whisker pole, and my friend gradually caught back up to me, but as the wind turn a-rears, we gradually left him behind for good, he'd snapped his whisker pole during the race from Marina del Rey, Round the Palos Verdes Pennisula, down to Seal Beach on Saturday... as we'd blasted thru Hurricane Gulch off San Pedro.. (refer to your Google World maties). I'd taken second place behind a boat with a slick race bottom and new sails. And after that, a feast and dance to a DJ till midnight with a skeleton of the two hundred or so who'd been there earlier. After enuff libations I finally got up the nerve to dance with the lasses. Sunday, we'd had a rough passage from Los Alamitos Marina cross the San Pedro Channel to the Catalina Isthmus, taking one huge wave over the top of the cabin, perhaps courtesy of Hurricance John, and arrived at Isthmus Harbor to find near gale force winds howling thru the Mountain Pass that divides the Island, so instead of entering "protected waters" we took refuge along the cliffs to the north, where I'd have never tried anchoring before, but a few big boats were doing so, so we decided to try our luck (hey nothing to lose but our boats and maybe our lives if the anchor didn't hold while we were fast asleep!). The waves rocked our boat from side to side more like a washing machine than a rocking chair. Well glad to get back to Marina del Rey and terra firma! Hope you all had a great Labor Day Weekend as I did. I'll be thinking of you'aall next weekend, have a safe trip! Don't take any chances...like me..ha ha ha! Love, Jerry PS: You know why you can take children to see "Pirates of the Carribean?.. ,,,,,It's rated....