Season's Greetings Bob,
                              A great day for sailing yesterday... if you
like 30 knot winds!  I picked a lousy time to leave the harbour though -
thanks to my crew being late, I gave her a good flogging for it!  I had a
hell of a time leaving the dock, the wind was strong enough to push me into
Bayliner country the second the mooring lines were released.  Not at all
what I wanted to happen!  Fortunately, their bowsprits are great for
fennding off - geez, I hope no one saw that!!  Anyway, I smacked my crew
again for awhile, got out of the harbour and out to the channel where we
motored into the wind and against the tide.  I barely got out of the
channel when I remembered the storm jib was not on the forestay, but in a
pretty red bag in the quarter birth.  Naturally, my frail and beaten crew
was in no shape to change sails so I decided to sail with a double reefed
main and no jib - I didn't want to unfurl the 120.  Didn't work out too
well.  The leeshore was closimg in far too quickly, we were making only
about 1 knot headway, and the tide was carrying us back into the channel
at about 4 knots!  There was one other boat crazy enough to be out but the
poor guy lost his auxilary power and was desperately trying to arrange a
tow with a power boat back into the harbour.  I decided to smack my crew
around a little bit more and lower the main.  We motored with the wind,
tide, and waves back through the channel at about 7 knots - just love
surfin' :^)  Comming back in was a breeze.  I got to the dock without any
significant mishaps and rafted inbetween a couple of C&C's.  A perfect
landing I must say :^)  I beat the crew then took her out for a pint and
nachos.  You know what they say,"You're only as happy as your last sail."
I've been real upset all day today.  I guess I'll have to go out again
tomorrow and rectify that :^)  I'll need to take a look at my "crew bank"
list to see which ones have had sufficient time to heal from their
floggings of outings past.  Not that I don't like single handing, I just
like having someone around :^)
  I'm going to be an instructor at one of the sailing schools on Granville
Island come the spring (they appear to appreciate my sailing skills over
there! :^)  and so I'm working on my certification.  I should have done all
that during haulout season when I was in Toronto!  Oh well, no sense in
crying over wasted time, I'll just do it now in the middle of the west
coast sailing season   Hope your trip is going well!
  Take care and TTYL
     Cheers,
             Augustin~~~===
                             National Yacht Club, Toronto - S2STOR - S2SVCR
... "Common sense is what tells you that the world is flat".
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