With all the busy work lately, more than a week has gone by before I’ve had a chance to report on the big raft-up out in Boca Ciega Bay. Here’s to getting caught up!
The Mariola crew (Cannonball, Hornblower and myself) hit the water around 1:00. Wind was blowing hard from the North, North-West at a good 15 knots. None of the other rafters were in Boca Ciega yet so we did a little headsail only sailing back and forth in the bay. It was great. I think a few times we had the boat near hull-speed when the wind really kicked. It’s too bad words or pictures can’t capture the feeling of being pulled toward the wind with nothing but the sound of the water all around you. You would have loved it.
A little bit of planning and some fortunate timing put us close to Structure C right when Sailmonster and Rossintampa were coming through. We met up with them, came about, and then followed them back up to the bay near the Gulfport Casino where we dropped anchor. We were nomiated as the anchor boat an deployed every fender available as the other two rafted up to us. Rossintampa is much better looking in person than his picture suggests, it was nice to meet him, and everyone on the Noankor and BonaFide boats as well.
Evening settled in and we grilled out, ate, drank, ate, drank, drank – great time. We all saluted the beautiful Boca Ciega Bay sunset, drank and talked for quite awhile, finally hitting the bunks about midnight. Here’s a little Sailmonster video to explain the evening events:
Obviously the next morning was a little slow moving. I made a couple pots of coffee/mud to wake up all rafters so they could take off for home. Most of them had a 5 hour sail ahead of them and it was now blowing about 20+ knots. Everyone later reported they made it home o.k., throbbing head and all. Can’t wait for the next one.
