Well we woke up this morning with Paradox swinging and heaving like the prize thoroughbred she is at the race gate. There was a fresh 20 knot wind from an offshore storm and Paradox had to get in it.

First things first though. The dogs need their morning shore excursion. I loaded them into the dinghy( now named Serendipity) and we went off looking for some secluded beach. There was none to be found. In the little Sabine when the tide is high the shoreline is covered with tall pokeweed and grass. I found a Serendipity sized opening and beached her on the grass. Princess had to learn to go bushwacking. She is an indoor city dog but she is adapting. She even did a little wading.

Back at Paradox I hoisted Serendipity on the new davits. Dad was just coming up the breezeway wiping the sleep from his eyes. I said are you ready and he said yes. We motored out of the little Sabine because this is one treacherous little bay.

As we left the little Sabine we were treated to more chop then what we had ever seen when we lived in Texas. No problems for Paradox. 20 knot winds across the starboard beam and we were ready for a fast ride home. We had to meet with our canvas guy back at the marina.

We had the water to ourselves for the start of a long weekend. I hate those stink pots. Not so much the boats but overall their owners are clueless about seamanship, colregs and pretty much anything that is different about a boat than a car. More on that later.

We are using the GPS maps to plot our courses now and it is teaching us more about our sailboat. With the ability to discern our course over ground(COG) we learn precisely how efficient Paradox is. It is a snap to see that she slides sideways about 4 degrees when close hauled compared to the steered course. That will help alot if we have navigate by dead reckoning.

After a rousing day of sailing as we were nearing the first buoy to the marina we started seeing signs of trouble. Sport fishing boats were trying to make it out. Some as small as 25 feet. Even big sportfishers can't keep sea like a sailboat with their flat bottoms. They were turning back as quickly as they were leaving and that means traffic jams with stink potters all over the place that do not know the rules of the road we were in for a headache. It took us 3 tries to hit our slip as stinkpotters were sandwiching us from the front and behind. With a stiff wind pushing us down the bayou and being forced to reduce our speed until we had no steerage by the rude trogladytes in a hurry to head out fishing with no clue what the weather was like out there.