We had our last sail of the year this past weekend, but what a sail it was!  We had my friend and co-worker Andrew come sailing with us and had an excellent time.  We left the marina Saturday morning at 10am and were able to sail almost 5 straight hours to Julian Bay at Stockton for the night.  The winds were almost perfect at 15 knots southwest.  It was Andrew’s first time sailing and it’s always good when you can show someone how it is when the winds are nice.  Not too much, not too little.  I’m pretty sure he had a great time.  We kayaked ashore and walked on the beach and grilled burgers on the boat for dinner.

Our friend Howard aboard his boat San Francisco, had his friend Doug aboard also who cruises on his boat full time.  We had been invited to San Francisco for desert after dinner, but were too comfortable and stayed aboard Wandering Toes for the night.  The winds remained strong, about 15-20 kts over night from the SW and we were protected by the island.  In the morning, we had our coffees and pulled our anchor up to go.  Before we left the bay, we rafted up with San Francisco for a half hour and visited with Howard and Doug.  Doug has his boat in Cartagena, Columbia and we were picking his brain for cruising information.  It was great to meet him and we wish we had more time to talk.  Howard gave us to-go packages of fresh made apple pie to take with us that Andrew and I were able to enjoy for lunch. 

We were thinking we would need to motor into the winds for 5-6 hours to get back home, but within a half hour we had raised the sails and were able to sail most of the way back.  Our last hour was spent motoring into the winds which were pushing 20 kts from the SW.  Almost as soon as we were back in the marina the winds calmed.  As if on cue, the winds calmed down and we were able to pull down our sails and get them folded up and put away for the winter, and get the dinghy deflated and loaded in the car.  As sad as it is to be done with our sailing season, it was good to go out with a bang!

Now we begin the process of winterizing our baby and getting her all protected for winter.  I’m having a great time working on the website and have lots of home-type projects that need attention.  I will be attempting to put our various videos into something worth watching and will get them uploaded as soon as I can.  This first month of blogging and getting things setup for our website has been very fun and I have blown through our entire months’ worth of bandwidth.  I will keep trying to add new posts throughout the winter to keep everyone informed of our activities.  Keep checking back here to see where our toes are a-wandering!