Near Seagirt, unfortunately couldn't get Paul in frame
Friday was a short day at work, so Rebekah invited me to join her afternoon sailing plans with a few other DSC regulars. Moderate winds, maybe 8-12kt, high 50s, partly cloudy progressing to fully overcast.
We wound up taking J22#8 along with a member I hadn't met yet, Paul -- he's spent a lot of time around boats but is pretty new to sailing. I took the tiller for our departure into NE winds, which shifted to E/SE as we rounded Domino and headed out past Ft. McHenry. A bit more than halfway to the bridge, I handed the tiller off to the skipper, but got a lot of good practice tacking and using the main sheet to keep us from getting blown over when gusts picked up.
We made it to the buoys before the bridge in a bit over 2 hours, then zipped back downwind, with only a few gybes all the way to the Fort. Our return to DSC was uneventful, but we had a little time left in our reservation so we headed past the dredging operation in front of Pier 5 to visit the Rusty Scupper before coming back to dock, during which Paul got some tiller time in lighter winds. Docked just in time, we beat the start of some light rainfall by 15-20 minutes. A little chilly at times, but a great day on the water!