And, finally, August

August - notice there is a "gust" in August! Finally got some wind. Took some firsts and seconds - more rum, yay! Small section - yay! We had a special visit from Katie! I think that was her first beer can! Also, Diane was able to sail a couple times since her calculus class ended!





Hi Katie and Diane!

July!

July 4th! Brrrrrrr! I remember the 4th of July being super cold and rainy... It did clear up for a sail on the night of the 4th... and the fireworks started at about 8:40pm - it was still light! come on Chicago... world class city that spends millions to light fireworks in the daylight... crazy. It was still a good sail. Throughout July, we are getting more and more comfortable and experimenting with the boat. I think we got our first first and some seconds on Wednesday night races. Yay! Rum for the islanders!

Also significant this month was Judi's "last" Mac race on Maskwa! Her 10th and "final" unless we can talk Tom into doing a cruising Mac... (Insert Tom rolling his eyes here.) It turned out to be a slow Mac.. I don't know what the problem was - Nicole and I had plenty of wind on our drive up to the island... look at all that blowing wind!!



Here is Maskwa's finish and the unveiling of Manny's "Goat" cap...

June Flew By

Well - here it is...almost the end of the season and I have been severely lacking in updates...

June was pretty quiet. A couple weeks with no wind, at all. We're really learning a lot about Dark Island - turns out, it's true, DI is not a light wind boat... we had to gracefully bow out of a race one night... it was just too much. Instead, we headed in and had some drinks and food...which ended up being a lot more fun than 0.0 knots to the finish. There was a week with bad weather where Judy sailed on Tempest and I sailed on Planxty... it was fun - spinnaker sailing for a change!

We did the lady skipper in early July - which was also a sloooooooow race. Look at the pics - see how smooth the water looks?! We had a postponement waiting for the wind that never came... well then a little came and we were able to finish. So that's June/Early July in a nutshell. "No, this is me in a nutshell... let me out, let me out!" Austin Powers for those who didn't get that reference...

Wednesday, the "drifteenth" of May

I'm feeling super lazy, kind of the like the wind on a Wednesday night... so I'm taking an email from Judy and using it as the update for the May 17th race... I'm calling it the drifteenth... it was a slow one... 2 hours to go 1 mile. As Judy put it:

"Yo ho ho...and a bottle of rum! We finished 2nd, behind Tempest, and got the bottle of rum on Wednesday. It was a drifter, but I think given our weight, we did very well, keeping a quick C&C 99 behind us until the finish line. The sunset was spectacular."

The next week was just as dead so we stayed in, enjoyed the air-conditioning and had some drinks!

Look at the boats just sitting there...

Go, Maskwa, Go!

Race committee had to move to the first pin...

Look at our section flag... just hanging there... lifeless...

Sunday Sail

It was a great day on Sunday...a little chilly once we left the harbor, but still a fabulous day to be out on the water. We had a young noob (that's newbie spelled a different way...). Here's bunch of pics from the day... just good fun. George & Me

The "Men"

Now, look away from the camera on three... good job!

Just head for the tall buildings...

Lots of fun windows to play in... I mean hatches...

Look at those butts!! Keep shakin' 'em Don & George!

Show's over...

Tom, where's your hoodie?

Judy just can't sit still...!

Always something to adjust

Sailing beauty, Crystal!

May 31 - Race Committee

Sunday was Race Committee for the Long Distance Classic! 7AM Boat Call. Out on the water by 8:30. We had 45 boats show up for the race Sunday, and with the 5 of us doing race committee we ran pretty well. We did have a slight misunderstanding of which side of the course we should have set the boat and which side we should have set the starting mark, but that was ok... one thing about the other marks was that it turned out one of the marks out on the course didn't exist - oops! It just wasn't there! We didn't find out about it until Raven came by telling us that they protested about 13 boats for passing the mark on the wrong side. Then, as all the other boats cruised by, we got more and more protests... one boat protested "everyone, except Rainbow's End and Out of the Blue." Not sure what to make of that... all in all it was a great day on the lake! We probably could have left and raced in the Lady Skipper if Nightmare hadn't been so darn fast... good thing we saw him coming before we set the finish line!



Also, while we were sitting around, it was a good time to eat bagels, practice tying knots (love the monkey fist and noose that Tom can tie) and to do a few things up at the top of the mast.