Photo: A full moon rises over the fleet anchored off Sharks Spit.

At 7:30 in the morning, we pick up Judy and Steve D. from their boat and motor out of the Gorge to anchor off Sharks Spit. Steve and I take the dinghy ashore for the skippers' meeting and there meet John of Amity and (another) John of the Rhodes Bounty Po Chai, a boat similar in design to the Annapolis 44. There are two races to choose from, an around Marina Island race either way or the traditional triangular race between Cortez Island and Marina Island. All three skippers choose the traditional race along with 15-20 other boats. Another 30 choose the around the island race.

Osprey gets off to a bad start and Amity and Po Chai both get out ahead of us. Then Amity and the rest of the fleet sail too close to Marina Island and get caught in a calm. We can see them all with their sails drooping while out ahead Po Chai slowly but steadily sails on. We follow and are closing the distance between us when on the last leg both boats get caught in the calms. We drift for the next hour or so, sometimes as low as 0.5 knots, sometimes all the way up to 2 knots! Three hot-doggers slowly catch up to us and pass us, and almost catch up to Po Chai who comes in first. We come in fifth behind the three hot doggers and another boat that somehow snuck in. Amity follows and the rest of the fleet trickles in. Never mind, we think we did well to beat Amity with a crew unfamiliar with the boat and a competitor, Po Chai, a veteran and multiple winner of past Sharks Spit Regattas. There's no handicapping so first across the line wins no matter their size or their design.


Photo: the Annapolis 44 Amity and the Rhodes Bounty 41 Po Chai at the start of the Sharks Spit Regatta.

We again anchor off Sharks Spit and take our dinghy ashore where a crowd of racers has been augmented by even more boaters (including the crew of Ellie K making my predictions that we'd see them in Gorge Harbour come true) and has put together a terrific potluck. After the potluck, the regatta commodore hands out the awards: brass spittoons purchased at a local thrift shop, a play on the double meaning of "spit." When I see the size of the first place spittoon, I'm glad we came in 5th, not first.


Photo: Fifth place winners of the Sharks Spit Regatta with the regatta commodore.

After the ceremony, we watch the full moon rise over Cortez Island to the east and the sun set over the Strait of Georgia to the west. The water is absolutely still. Lights go off in the fleet and all is silent. At 2:00 I wake up when the wind comes up and see that the boats have turned and we're dangerously close to two other boats. I wake up Steve and he wakes up Steve and Judy D. who are rafted next to us on Code Blue. Code Blue breaks off and we raise anchor. Then both boats motor through the fleet and into the Gorge. I'm nervous about going through the Gorge in the dark but the moon is bright and the sight of the Gorge in the moonlight is something I'll long remember.

I'll end my blog here, in the moonlight. The next day we'll go on to Pender Harbour where I'll spend a day reviewing the final proofs of my book, finally handing it off to Harbour Publishing's managing editor at 9:30 at night.

It would have been nice to linger in this area but the weather report calls for southeasterly in two days, signaling the end of good weather and the end of summer. Time to head home.