Century Club: George Hernandez

After some overdue work on a stantion, I was ready to head out. Unfortunately by then it was right at peak ebb tidal flow! My slip at OPCM is close to an opening in the seawall and the current squeezing around the seawall gets quite powerful. It wants to push me back into my slip and even worse since it is at an angle, so when backing out I occasionally get pushed sideways against the pilings. Eventually I'll work out a technique until another slip becomes available. With the current and narrow fairway, backing in is not always an option.

Comfortable temperatures and a NE breeze for the evening. Nice sailing for the racers and perfect for sleeping. I love the hot weather but prefer 60's for an overnight low over 90!

A very warm Thursday as I set out ahead of the evening Willoughby Race. A light west breeze had faded as I got out of the marina so with the sail up I motored into the channel to let the outgoing tide carry me east. Passing Fort Wool into the bay ripples were visible on the water a half mile to the north. Again with the help of the Westerbeke to get me there, some sailing! I cruised north past Buckroe Beach before turning back.

The sun was brutal. With the temperature in the upper 90's, light winds and no bimini to hide under I was very uncomfortable. Entering Willoughby Bay I gave up and used the diesel again. As soon as the anchor was down, so was the swim ladder and into the water to cool off.

After photographing the evening race, dinner and a movie. It never cooled off and with a fan blowing on me, sleep was impossible until 3 am. On the plus side, I was awake to watch the upper stage of a Falcon 9 heading up the coast.

In the morning back to OPCM before the worst heat of the day arrived, 

A light east wind along with an incoming tidal current and the best I could do was mostly go back and forth across the channel early on. This was fine with me and then I was rewarded with another Nonsuch returning to Hampton. Turning my attention to Art in his Nonsuch 26, I plotted an intercept course to say hello and take a few pictures.

The winds began to shift NE making it much easier to recover from my downwind distraction and make it into the north channel for Willoughby Bay. Dropping anchor at the east end, I did a little work on the boat and fished ahead of dinner catching 6 Croaker. It was their lucky day as I already had burgers for the grill.

A couple days before I was at First Landing SP and met a guy with a sailboat in the parking lot. He had the mast up but doing that had taken longer than expected and the days heat was getting to him. Since getting late in the afternoon he decided to call it a day. I helped lower the mast and offered to come out later in the week to help launch and recover. 

On friday morning we got the mast up and launched into Braod Bay. After checking no water coming into the boat and with very light winds we just motored around as he calibrated instruments, happy to finally have his boat in the water.