Last sail of 2010

[PaulinVictoria]

Well the weather looked fine this morning, clear blue skies and a gentle breeze so an apparently perfect day to be on the water, despite the -4C with a windchill of -10C.
After arriving at the marina and getting the boat ready, we went to back out of the slip. Turns out we needed a bit more speed to break through the half inch thick sheet of ice covering the water
Forward back into the slip, then more power and second time lucky we're out. Great fun being an icebreaker across the marina before finally into the main waterways where it was nice and clear.
Motored across to Sidney Spit and performed our first ever mooring to a buoy, didn't make too much of a hash of it which was nice
Had a nice lunch, floating about for a couple of hours, sharing the water with a few gulls and a couple of seals. Fired up the motor again, let go the buoy and then sails up for a lovely 2 hour sail back across the water to the marina, 5knots against the tide at times (which would have been 7knots through the water).
What a lovely day
Happy New Year to everyone, and hope 2011 is all it can be.

[HDChopper]

I am enjoying all the Winter Sails / Iebreaker threads here lately , Thanks Pauline

[WanderingStar]

Nice. I got out yesterday too, sans ice. Well, I did shovel some ice and snow from the decks first. It took a couple of tries to start the motor (no glow plugs). Then uncovered sail while waiting for my crew. His Westsail is high and dry. Air was about 40f, occasional sun, breeze force2, then 1. Idling the engine just in case, we sprung her through the breeze, then sailed off under main and mizzen. Out in the Sound we saw one sailboat motoring NE (hello, wrong direction, Florida is the other way). Close reached about out to the middle, tacked over to return. The breeze fell calm, then came ahead light. We tacked slowly into the inlet, where the current brought us inside. By the the sun was setting, leaving the clouds orange and purple. Hove to and furled. Wrapped up and went gladly home to a warm house and hot dinner.

[BubbleheadMd]

Awesome guys. I'm in the water, but the motor's in my garage for routine maintenance. Living vicariously through you.

[Faster]

Happy New Year everyone... We got out yesterday for an overnighter at a nearby island. Met up with 3 other boats from our club. Very crisp, but clear and beautiful with the snow capped mountains in the sunshine. First half was pee-on-a-plate calm, but we hooked into an outflow breeze for a nice beat the second half. This morning we managed to right that same outflow about a third of the way home, but motored the rest in glassy conditions again.

Cabin heaters got a workout as the overnight temp was -5C, plenty of frost in the cockpit this morning. But in the sunshine it was extremely pleasant and we've already got our first day for 2011 in the log book.