The forecast for Saturday changed quite a few times. A couple days prior I was looking forward to the sunny, 10 knot winds, 70 degree day they predicted. That would be perfect weather. Well, then Friday night they forecasted 5 knot winds and partly cloudy, still around 70. I got up Saturday morning and it was very cloudy and about 50 degrees, so it sure did feel like fall. Brian got off from work to come out for the first time since Memorial Day weekend, so he was really looking forward to it. I was also meeting Allison to go sailing, so I was hoping we would have some nice weather or at least some wind to actually sail in.

Brian and I left my place around 9am and I had to make a stop in Annapolis to pick up my Honda outboard water pump impeller that I ordered at Fawcett's. That was very quick and we got to the boat around 10:45am. On the drive we encountered some light rain, which wasn't expected. Brian and I scrubbed the decks, removing some of the bird crap that accumulated over the past couple weeks, luckily it wasn't that much. I got everything ready and Allison showed up around 11am. We departed shortly there after.

The wind was coming down the Rhode River, so as we approached the West River I raised the main. Once in the West River, I shut off the outboard and we sailed out the main channel towards the bay. Winds were light at first, but once we were further out the channel past the shoal, winds picked up to I'm guessing 10-15 knots. We had a fun ride and took a heading towards Eastern Bay. Dave called me up letting me know where he was. We had taken the main channel out and were on the other side of the shoal extending from the West River and Dave was just getting to the shoal. I figured we would continue our course for a few minutes longer than tack back towards Dave and try to meet up. Several minutes later and talking on the phone, I was able to spot Dave and we sailed to each other.
Here is a photo that Dave took of us:

Here is Dave:


We sailed together on our way to Eastern Bay. Well, actually we tried to stick together, but Dave kept getting further ahead. I was trying to tweak my sail trim the best I could to get every possible fraction of a knot, but he slowly got further away. Oh well, it was still a lot of fun.
Here are several photos from the trip. It was a very gray day. We had some light rain in the beginning and I had the bimini up in case it started to pour to keep us dry.
Brian on deck:

Brian's first time at the helm in some moderate winds:

Brian is having such a blast! Actually he took a nap since he only had a few hours of sleep the previous night.

Allison at the helm:

Myself:

On our way back down the West River channel, the winds calmed down a bit. I sat on the stern pulpit and held our course with my foot. Nice clear view from up there.

I forgot the name of this very nice schooner, but Allison used to sail on it:

The winds varied on our way back. Dave was ahead of us, but we were catching up to him as we were coming down the main channel. He sailed further out and tacked back. I took a course close hauled and we cut the distance, but he was still a bit ahead of us. We sailed down wind on the Rhode and made it back to Cadle Creek. Allison was impressed that I perfectly "parallel parked" my 25' boat in my slip without much clearance in front or astern, mentioning the difficulty of parallel parking a car in DC.

Here is the course that Dave took from his GPS chart plotter. We took a slightly different course and turned back to meet up with him, but this gives you a general idea of where we went. I forgot how many miles Dave said it was, but it was some where around 20.