Fall is gone

Wow, what a year it went by so fast this summer, I was busy with work and it seemed that my Sundays were working and not overnighting as much as I had hoped for this summer.

Sailing on a light misty morning

I did do my day sails and one nighter's  but weekending at different places and touring around for a week straight just didn't happen for us.
Next year I hope will be different but as the saying goes you make hay when the time is right.

So the boat is on the hard for the winter, cleaned up, gear removed, tarps on her and waiting for some warmer weather.
I am going to build the cabinets this winter to place along the quarterberth for some added storage.
I am very interested in looking at what is involved in building a hard top dodger for some solar panels.
The roller furler will also be researched this winter and priced out with a new sails.

This year has been very hectic and just got in the way of my sailing season, elements outside my control just went bezerk and somehow managed to swallow alot of my time energy and resources, not to mention that work although fun was rather demanding this season as a couple clients just seemed to want to meet up on Sunday noon as the perfect time, so 8 of the 10 weekends were eaten up with meetings and that prevented me from doing any long distance sailing this year.
2013 will be my year for entering the LO300 as I am already making arrangements to have the boat there and also the time to actually do the course twice, as I have to sail the entire length to  start and once finished will sail back home. so this could mean 7 days almost non-stop sailing.
Looking forward to the next season. I will be posting my research findings and how we go about figuring out what and where to buy the new toys for KnottyGurl.

Weekending In the Bay of Quinte

This weekend is always a great weekend for me, its my wife's birthday and Canada Day rolled into one weekend. So its always great to get away and have a party all weekend celebrating my wife's birthday but Canada's as well.
This year we were in the Bay of Quinte, Hay Bay at Ram Island for Saturday night. We met up with Al & Suzanne did some swimming and lots of sundowners made an incredible surf n turf of shrimp tails with filet mignon. Roasted veggies as a side and it was just tasty. A few more drinks with lots of chatting.
morning came and it was pannacakes as Katy calls them with a great skillet fried potatoes with sausage, peppers and onions miked up with eggs. A regular breakfast on the boat and quickly becoming the house breakfast.

We decided to motor out to the narrows a 30 min run at 5kns to where the ferry crosses from Adolfuston to Glenora, after passing this section due to micro bursts and directional changes from the other day I wanted to make better time to our next place for the night.
I hoisted the DRS and set the blocks way back this time and put out the spinnaker pole and a nice westerly took us from the ferry all the way to Kerr's bay in a what I will call an awesome sail, tiller pilot was in lace course set and we basically went on that take till I had to round the point at Kerr point to enter the bay.
It allowed us lots of time to chat and laugh we feasted on cheese n crackers, different dips and veggie trays, only downfall was as we were on a run I couldn't fly my kite as the wind was almost dead astern so the string would have fouled the rigging with the kite.
We motored to the western end of the bay and found a small place where we would tuck in close to shore so Bentley had an easier time being rowed ashore for his potty breaks.
One of these days I hope he figures out that a potty break in the cockpit or on the forward deck would be welcomed so we didn't have to plan out so many breaks for the pup.
The fire works started around 9 10 and was finished around 930.
A couple rounds of sequence and it was lights out.
PB&J's for breakfast on the run with an early start and by 11am we were in our dock and cleaning the boat up for the next weekend and unpacking and reloading the truck up.
It turned out to be an incredible weekend after all with some great swimming at Ram Island and a good firework show in Kerr's point.

Where to go next weekend is the question at hand now...