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| The fleet spreads out as it heads toward Port Aransas. |
This past week (October 13-14) we
spent two days on the water – not the Bay, mind you, but the Gulf
itself – sailing to Port Aransas (just north of Corpus Christi)
from Galveston as part of the 30th annual Harvest Moon
Regatta. I've never participated; this was David's 4th
trip. We were crew on Morning Star, a Shannon 38 that belongs
to friends John and Brenda.
I used the race as
an excuse to buy new boat duds. Mine were all either expired or
really moth-eaten after not being used for eight very long years.
West Marine and Academy came to the rescue, providing me with a new
windbreaker and rain pants, a new warm rainproof jacket for cooler
temperatures, a couple of new tops, new shorts, new pants, and new
undies that I hoped would dry quickly if they got wet. Soggy cotton
is a nightmare on a sailing trip, rubbing your skin raw with damp and
salt, so all these new clothes were made of quick-drying material.
Brenda generously supplied us with two Morning Star tees, one
long-sleeved and one short-sleeved. Topped off with my Boat Life ball
cap and 100% sun block, I was set.
We met John and
Brenda at their slip at the crack of dawn Thursday morning and
schlepped our modest duffels and food supplies aboard. The crew included daughter Megan and the real captain, poodle Elmo, who oversaw the
whole operation in between snacks. Elmo is such a trooper, she
actually pees on the side deck (when the sea is calm), the only dog I
have met in our travels who would do that.
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| John, Brenda, and Elmo on the deck of Morning Star with our award. |
The trip to
Galveston was the usual motoring slog, since the wind is always wrong
for sailing, but we had a great time visiting with each other and
craning our necks as other sailboats joined the parade. I believe
there were 143 sailboats in this year's race, and I think I heard
that 141 finished.
About 2 p.m.
Thursday afternoon, all the boats clumped up outside the Pleasure
Pier on Galveston Island, jockeying for position. Everyone wanted to be
exactly on time, but not early, for the individual starts. The race
committee breaks the fleet up into different classes, and each class
has a slightly different start time. The slowest boats go first, the
fastest last. A Shannon is a heavy cruising cutter-ketch (she carries
a jib, staysail, and mainsail on the foredeck and a mizzen sail on
the aft deck). She's very sea kindly, but not a fast ride by any
means. The only boat slower would be one like ours...Raven is
a 36 foot cutter, with less length and one less sail. Morning Star
was in the second class called.
We survived the
start, which included a boat-jam with the requisite yelling and fears
of collision, and then set sail in light wind (7 or 8 knots, maybe)
under beautiful sunny skies. The boats fanned out around us as they
headed to their preferred course. Each captain has his or her own
idea of the best route, either farther out or hugging the shoreline.
Cap'n John opted for a pretty straight course down the coastline,
about 5-10 miles offshore most of the trip.
There's no “right”
way to do the coast. When David and I go along the coast on our way
to Corpus Christi or to Florida (we aren't racing, of course), we
tend to head out to the fairways and deep water as fast as we can. If
you look at Google Earth, you can see a shelf along the US side of
the Gulf. The shelf extends out about 50-100 miles from shore and the
water is relatively shallow, 50-80 feet deep, depending. Shallow
water tends to slosh and sloshing rocks the boat, which makes for a
very, very uncomfortable ride. But, for a race along the coast,
heading out to deep water won't do.
Our sail was fairly
steady and quiet until the sun went down. About 8 o'clock the wind
roused and it continued to build all night, to a high of a little
over 20 knots. Most of the night it was in the high teens. It took
some sail adjustments and slick helmsmanship to keep us on course.
John wrestled with the sails and David did the cowboy-style steering
as we lurched along. Feeling a bit useless, I went below for a nap.
When I came back up,
the roiling seas that were pushing us along like a corkscrew had
felled David with seasickness. I didn't feel so hot, either, but I am
generally less affected than he is. I stayed up on deck and kept
watch for Cap'n John, who was at the helm, while Brenda and Megan
napped. We were blessed with a full moon, of course (the race is
always held on the full moon), so we could see really well. There are
lots of oil rigs on this trail, and a number of them are “dark” -
no lights or whistles to alert you to their presence. A better chance
of missing those rigs is one reason traveling under a full moon is a
really good idea.
It's amazing how
busy the Gulf is at night. In addition to the oil and gas rigs and
the tankers and container ships (the big ships were much farther out
than we were), the fishing fleet is hard at work. Thursday night,
shrimp boats were strung out like bulbs on a string between us and
Port A. They'd appear on the horizon as a really bright spotlight,
then slowly grow and grow until the light spread out all around the
boat, illuminating the deck and the huge insect-like arms on either
side of the deck from which the nets hang. Morning Star must have passed 20 of
these enormous growling trawlers. Shrimpers are working boats and
have the right of way, so you have to keep track of where they are
going.
When Brenda and
Megan reappeared on deck, I went below again for more napping to
quell my queasy stomach. Fortunately, with such a large crew of
iron-stomached sailors on the boat, I had the luxury of sleeping it
off.
The next morning I
reappeared and did my bit at the wheel to relieve John and everyone
marveled at the time we were making. Sure enough, Morning Star crossed the
finish line at Port A almost exactly 24 hours after crossing the
starting line in Galveston. We all just gaped – no one of us had
ever made that crossing in less than a day and a half. We didn't know
what to do with ourselves, but decided a hot shower would be a darn
good start.
Island
Moorings Marina at Port A is new and clean and was full of other shocked
racers with time on their hands. The bathrooms had large tubs for
soaking baths! I have never seen that at a marina. I took full
advantage and let the salt dissolve away while daydreaming about the
gossamer light of the full moon settling over the ocean, of the
blazing canopy of stars that appeared when the moon set in the wee
hours, and of the sunlight glittering on the waves as we bounced
toward the finish. The clean ocean air had me drunk and sleepy and
relaxed, which was a good thing because muscles I don't even have
were sore after all that exercise.
We enjoyed the food
and festivities at the Regatta party, won third place in our class,
and swapped early arrival stories with the other crews. No one could
remember such good weather for the race. Usually it manages to be on
the same weekend as the first norther to arrive down here, but this
year that norther won't show up until the end of this week. I take
all the credit for that. Why not? Beginner's luck.
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| Happy sailors on the deck of Morning Star. |
