July 1st, 2nd & 3rd: Mark Twain Lake, Missouri
After work Friday and after our weekly family meal with Grandma and Grandpa, we decided to load up Galactica and head up that evening. It's much easier to rig in the relative cool night than during mid morning or mid day when it's 95-100 degrees outside and a humidity raising the heat index to 105+.
We stopped at the Moberly Walmart to top off ice in our coolers and pick up some snacks.
We arrived at the rig parking lot at Ray Behrens Rec area around 11pm and proceeded to rig Galactica with pleasant winds blowing. Other than a couple cleaning their fish, we had the lot to ourselves--better yet, we had the ramp to ourselves without the stress of many people of various personalities and degrees of patient courtesy putting in or taking their boat out.
Galactica, tied to the Ray Behrens' pier and awaiting a late night sail into the darkness!
By Midnight, we unfurled our Genoa and sailed out of the ramp bay into the Blackjack arm, passing the dam and down the main channel towards the Spalding pool! It was a wonderful midnight sail with my new LED steaming light shining on the upper half of the Genny, giving it a subtle but beautiful glow. We sailed until nearly 2am when we decided we were just too tired so we furled the sail and motored the rest of the way to the back of Ski cove on the north side of the lake. We dropped the Richter Anchor, set up the windscoop over the vberth hatch and settled in for the night.
Good Morning Sunshine!!
Saturday morning passed quickly after breakfast and time spent tinkering on the boat. Angie organizing the inside and sorting out ideas we tried so that we'll be proplerly prepared for our planned trip with Galactica to Florida this summer.
We washed down the boat and we spent a couple hours swimming and relaxing in the water as the day's temperature rose.
I rigged up a rod holder on the pedestal and mounted our poor man's bimini - a pool umbrella.
Winds were good all morning so we raised our anchor and sailed out of our anchorage in the end of ski cove.
As we sailed across Spalding pool towards Hurricane Gulch in the above image, we found a number of other sailboats amongst the myriad powerboats. Amongst these were Higher Porpoise, Rogue and Wild Goose.
Rogue motor sailed around each of us taking videos of us under sail in the light mid-day winds.
Eventually, we worked our way to an afternoon anchorage back into ski cove. We spent a very relaxing afternoon reading, talking and swimming. A lot of swimming in the heat!
As evening approached, Higher Porpoise had to leave. The crews (Hazel, Steven, Liz, Jeff, Angie and myself)of Rogue, Wild Goose and Galactica shared a meal of Grilled BBQ meat balls, pasta/veggie salad and homemade chocolate chip cookies.
After dinner was cleaned up and another swim, we broke the raft up apart for a sunset sail. In the picture above, taken from Galactica's helm, is Wild Goose to starboard and Rogue directly ahead.
Look at the beautiful sunset in Galactica's mirror as we ran with the wind towards the BlackJack arm.
In the light winds, Rogue was able to hoist her spinaker and leave Wild Goose and Galactica to ghost along as the sun set in very light winds. Wild Goose, pictured above.
We borrowed the vacant slip of Island Time which Matt is still completing final rigging upon and converged upon Higher Porpoise for a night cap and conversation. Many of us were showing signs of wear from our day's adventures! Afterwards, Matt gave me an old Spinaker which will fit Galactica! I cannot wait to rig her to fly this massive light-wind head sail!!!
We woke early sunday morning to rain. I hopped out and derigged our windscoop, closed up the hatches most of the way and went back to bed.
We hung out at the marina for most of the morning as the rain came and went. Weather turned bad over many counties but we were not forecasted to get the thunderstorms.
Eventually, we followed Mac II out for a midday sail but after a while, the winds died. Lois and Dennis said they were through and they motored Mac II back to their slip.
We headed back to the BlackJack arm and played around in the flukey winds under just the head sail.
Angie went below to make some torillas for lunch and by the time she came back up, the whole western horizon turned nasty with a sudden summertime thunderstorm. With thunder audible, I decided to sail to the ramp cove at Ray Behrens Recreation Area and check out the mass exodus of powerboats who decided to not stay for the fireworks display above the dam that evening.
We wound our way amongst perhap 40 to 50 boats waiting to use the ramp, I decided that we'd drop anchor further up a sheltered cove as the weather worsened.
We lowered the mast and de-rigged while waiting for the ramp to empty out some. It was the first time we lowered the mast while on the water! Glad I practiced simulating it on the trailer last year.
Murphy's law, it began raining about the time I started putting the boots onto the sails. By the time I had the boom removed, thunder was loud and lighting was visible. We lowered the mast in the downpour and I secured as much of the shrouds and rigging as possible.
I didn't take pictures of the chaos of the ramp exodus due to the non stop heavy rain. Angie retired to the cabin and its dry warmth. We kept Galactica drifting at the edge of the fray while impatient, inexperienced or just plain discourteous boaters worked their way out. Wind and current forced me to periodically reposition Galactica. After about an hour and a half, there were few enough boats left that I could bring Galactica up to the pier, tie off and run up for the tow beast and trailer.
A couple other boaters were patient and waited with us. I finally told them I was taking the right side of the pier and moved Galactica forward. As I was on final approach, a large pontoon boat full up people charged into the no wake zone and passed Galactica when I was just a few boat lengths away. They could have pulled up to the left side of the pier to let the two men off to retrieve their vehicle but she cut us off without looking and dropped them off at the end of the pier, blocking our way. I had to perform a high powered reverse with the Etec in order to not hit them. I backed out and they looked at us as if we were the idiots. The other remaining boaters exclaimed their dismay at the lady driving the pontoon boat.
We tied up and I jogged up to get the truck. The rain lessened to a slow drizzle by then. In the parking lot, two sailboats were rigging. One of which was Silk, a Macgregor 26X and precursor to our model. I retrieved Galactica and we pulled up next to Silk .
I talked with them as they were waiting for the weather to clear so they could finish rigging and launch.
All in all, it was a Great weekend sailing!
