Every year, I look forward to long weekend cruises over Memorial Day, Fourth of July, and Labor Day. This year the Memorial Day, Fourth of July, weekends were almost washouts. By the time that Labor Day weekend was approaching I was seriously jones'n for a great long cruise weekend. As soon as it was 0 days out, I looked at the forecasts and the weather looked awful with the three or four days predicted to be marked by rain and heavy thunderstorms. Over the following week, it looked like no wind except during the thunderstorms. It only seemed to get worse as the days past. Finally, I pulled the plug on going cruising and Barbara and I made plans to get together with friends on various evenings over the weekend.
And then tbe weekend came. Saturday, Barbara and I had a lovely daysail, sailing north of the bridge almost to Love Point under glorious skies, bathed in comfortable air temperatures, and with great winds. The ominous forecast, seemed to keep the traffic down and so there wasn't even the washing machine style waves.
On Sunday I drove up to Langfort Bay Marina to meet with a friend of mine and his delightful family. A few years back I had helped this friend find and buy a boat, and deliver it to the marina where he keeps her. Since then, I have been providing some coaching and backstopping on maintenance and sailing skills, but I had not sailed on his boat with him. So Sunday I went up and had a lovely sail on the Chester River. Despite the hovering dark clouds and the occasional big gusts out of nowhere, it was a delightful day on the water.
Back at my house, just before I went to bed that night, Monday was looking like a real stinker. But Monday dawned lovely and only got better as the day went on. Barbara and I were all over the place, reaching and beating back and forth across the Bay in hopes of rendezvousing with another of our friends.
So while there was not a glorious Labor Day Cruise, there was a lovely Labor Day with with great days of sailing.