Century Club: Jeffrey Halpern

All week the weather forecasts for the Fourth of July looked awful.  But when I awoke and looked out at the creek,  the conditions looked perfect.  Instead of the doom and gloom of a processional of one thunder storm followed by the next, demarcked only by windless, leaden-skied pauses in the maelstrom, there were clear cloudless skies and steady breezes.  There was a unanimous agreement among the online weather oracles that it was a mandatory sailing day.....writ large. 

After a leisurely breakfast as is only befitting on such a glorious holiday morning, and a rapid prep to get underway, we were off on a delightful daysail. I was blessed by my wife Barbara's company.  Barbara describes herself as a 'fair weather sailor'. She classifies a fair weather sailor as a person who prefers to sail on on perfect sailing days. In her mind, she means that she only prefers to sail when the expected winds, and air temperatures are predicted to be perfect, but the weather forecasters always lie. 

She comes to that preference honestly after years of sailing with her husband, (that would be me) who thinks any day when you can return to the dock alive is a perfect sailing day.  

But today was a perfect sailing day for both of us.  

Okay, so the start was did not go as planned. We had planned to go right almost immediately off the line with the goal of getting to better winds, and less current. Instead we were in the second row, stuck on straboard, pinned to the left of a major gaggle of other boats. But eventually we found a lane to tack that did not require taking the transom of a half dozen boats. 

That was a good call as we made out getting lifted and powered up near Bembe Beach and rounded as the second or third boat. Cool! It was a pleasant cliose reach to the next mark. Not our best, not our worst. tacked inshore as soon as we could and that paid off big time. Nailed it. Putting us back on the tail of the first boat around. 

The trip back toward town was a sleigh ride. I only widh we could have planned in the bigger gusts like the lighter boats were doing. The trip through the harbor was a good one giving us one of our best finishes of the summer. 

It was perfect weather for a weekday race. The temps and breezes were just about ideal. We were rapidly approaching the longest day of the year which meant that the race committee could send us out on a long course and expect us home for happy hour. 

It seemed like we nailed the start, and had some great legs. The crew work has steadily been improving. We really nailed the trip through the harbor. But when the results were posted, we ended up mid pack. 

Given all of the above, there was (almost) absolutely nothing to complain about.

So it was supposed to be a Wednesday Night Race night, but the skipper was off cruising. That would have been okay but he took the boat with him. His boat- His rules- No race. Which was fine. 

I have had Synergy disassembled doing the compliance updates recommended on the Insurance Survey. It’s been a lot of work and a lot of stuff, but I have been making steady progress. The plan was to simply continue with the list of tasks. It’s a bit like the old joke, "How do you eat an elephant?" ....One bite at a time.

So having completed another bite, I started to knock off and walk up to the house, but as I got up in the cockpit, it struck me that it was a lovely evening and I needed to sit in the cockpit and simply enjoy the view. I thought it would be a solitary experience but as I sat there I realized that I had visitors. 

A couple Mallards stopped by to chat amongst themselves. An osprey wheeled overhead and buzzed the boat on the way to dinner. A parade of great herons flew past one at a time, squawking as they winged their way towards a not very secret rendezvous near Cantlers. They were eyed wearily by a night heron paroling the shallow beach where the bluff meets the cove, On the other hand, The herons were cheered on by a small cluster of barn sparrows swooping in for the gossip session of the day and to leave souvenirs of their on my foredeck below the lifelines on which they gathered. 

Suddenly my solitude became crowded, but in a good way.....