The CHESSS Last Hurrah Race is one of my annual milestone events. This race demarcks the end of the Short-handed racing season for me. It often has an associated social event that provides a chance for our gregarious introverts to hang out together. This year's event was slated to have a raft-up the nafternoon and evening before the race.
All week I had nervously watched the predictions for the weekend weather. One forecast showed zero wind and others showed less than 2 knots both Saturday and Sunday. Saturday morning the most optimistic forecast started out with a dead run in 4 knots of wind dropping to less than 2 knots by mid-day. At least the current was favorable.
With great trepidation of a long motor to the raft-up I loaded up Synergy and headed out. Out in the creek there was a bit more wind than predicted and so as I left Whitehall Bay I sent up the ancient spinnaker fondly known as "Patches".
Early on it was a Tantalus kind of a day. Those of us who remember our Greek mythology probably recall Tantalus, who was punished for revealing the secret of the God's. Tantalius was punished by being forced to stand in a pool of water, but whenever he bent down to drink, the water would receed just out of reach.
Similarly, I could clearly see decent breese just ahead of Synergy and me, but just as we got to the spot that there had been breezes a moment before, the water would go flat, and the breeze would move off ahead of us just as we got to it. But drifting with the ebbing tide, the GPS showed 1.4 knots over the bottom so I figured that I would be content even if poor old Patches was plastered back against the forestay.
But despite the dire predictions, the wind filled in and old Patches did her stuff, taking us to the raft-up at the appointed time. The comraderie was all that it could have been sitting in a quiet anchorage with nothing more to do but chat and eat.
Desert was a butterball moon rising over our collective transoms.