On Saturday July 18, Patti and I took advantage of some alone time (Lily in NYC apartment hunting -- a story of its own) to take out the boat.

It was much less windy than our last attempt, but it was hot and humid. It was above 90 degrees and very sunny. Leaving the dock, I don't think Patti pushed us to the right hard enough; we wound up backing almost straight out, with a slight curve to the left even though the wheel was hard over in the other direction.

We backed out of the fairway with no problem and then off down the river. The tide was falling and the wind was blowing straight at us, giving the river a bit of chop.

Once out into the Sound, we raised the main, but put a reef in. Unlike her predecessor, on this boat it's easier to put the reef in while actually hoisting the sail. I had to manually pull the line at the gooseneck to give the reefing line enough slack to tighten the reef at the tack at the end of the boom, but it all worked well after that.

We rolled out about half of the genny and were sailing along. The winds didn't seem as strong out in the Sound, and even Patti suggested we roll out more genny. Eventually, we settled down on a course to the southeast, generally towards the Thimbles. Conditions were good and the sailing easy. Out on the water, it didn't seem quite so hot.

Lunch was served, and we had a very nice sail until we had to tack to avoid the reef formerly known as Negro Heads (my chartplotter still calls it that, although the name has been officially changed for a couple of years, and it was just updated on the NOAA charts last week).

After the tack, we were headed generally northwest. As we approached the harbor mouth again, we came across more and more powerboats out for the day and their wakes.

One boat overtook us from behind and passed within forty feet on our right, giving us a full dose of their wake. They waved as they went by, either oblivious to the rudeness of their effect on us, or simply enjoying our discomfort. Patti was particularly put out, noting that they had the entire Sound at their disposal, but they opted to bother us.

After sailing to East Haven, we both decided it was time to go swimming, so we turned around and headed back to the harbor. We were both pleasantly surprised that there weren't many people anchored or moored in the harbor on such a hot day. The mooring that we had used last time (with the convenient whip) was available, so we grabbed it.

We were in the water swimming within minutes, using both the pool noodles and the float. The water was absolutely delightful; a little cool, but that was necessary on a day like Saturday. For the next couple of hours, we read, relaxed, had a drink and puttered about the boat. And I must say it was a small thrill to use my new clothespins to dry my towel on the lifelines. Just like the big yachts.

One interesting thing: when we shut down the engine after mooring, we heard a pump going on down below. I didn't know where it was coming from, so I shut off the battery switch, which stopped the noise. I figured out quickly that it was the fuel pump, which was still going because I had neglected to turn the engine key off after stopping the engine. The reason I forgot it was because the low pressure alarm did not go off when the engine was stopped. I need a new one of those.

Back to the dock at almost dead low tide. There was barely a foot of water under the keel when we pulled in, but we had no problems. We made a quick stop at Mom and Dad's (Patti saw the newly painted bathrooms), then home to the boy.

We thought we might go to the boat again on Sunday when Lily returned from NY, but it was so damn hot and humid that not even I wanted to be outside.