Overnighting on Puget Sound

In recent months, I have found myself opening the editor page of my blog and wondering what I should write about next. The once weekly--now monthly--updates of my latest activities abroad seem all the more trivial now that I am back on the near side of the world to, who other than the most typical reader of a blog: the writer's mother. (I realize of course my audience transcends this stereotype and many friends follow or check in from time to time, but you catch my drift, right?)

Now that I am really living somewhere. Grounded and happily established in a city, with friends and a fairly consistent day to day schedule, generating content somehow *new* or exciting seems far more contrived. Is it really so interesting to you that I spent my last two weekends overnighting on the Puget Sound with friends I race with on a J-30? Probably not. And what about my not so stellar photos of people you have never met? Equally riveting, I'm sure. I am struggling for the motivation to keep this blog alive. Note the previous design entry as testimony.

Despite the above tangent, I keep on keeping on for the sake of friends I am not in proper contact with, people who are bored at work and the non-facebookers out there.

My last real entry was the weekend of my return from Race Week on Whidbey Island. I have since joined the crew of Slingshot, momentarily the crew of a J24 and stopped sailing with the J105 I began sailing with back in April.

It is incredible how much politics play in the dynamic of a boat crew. Believe me, they can generate all levels of awkwardness be it a crew/boat break up or the dynamic between one or several members on the boat. While I found myself knee deep in a handful of these *graceful* situations, not for a moment did I question my decision to switch boats. I get a serious kick out of the people I sail with. I can spend a week sailing and camping with them, two consecutive weekends in close quarters and still look forward to our next meeting. Not bad.

There are several other J30 boats in Everett, about 30 miles North of Seattle-- a mere 5 hour motor from Elliot Bay. We took the boat up two weeks ago to participate in two Friday night races against them and overnighted on the boat the following two weekends. The first was Mike, one of our trimmers, last full weekend in town before getting sent off to Almhult, Sweden for four months for work. That weekend too, my friend Erik was in town from Chicago visiting. Saturday we sailed north of Everett to Kayak point where we met Mike, anchored for the night and the five of us spent the following day sailing around before heading back to the marina.



Repeating the trip in reverse, this time with awesome crew uniforms Friday night (you can't see them because we're the boat in front) and just three of us in for the weekend overnight, we headed south on Saturday around the West side of Bainbridge Island where we moored overnight before heading back to Elliot Bay in Seattle Sunday afternoon.



An update with the uniforms!


(Photo courtesy of Mike.)