The Journey Home

We had no sooner left the dock when the skies opened up and blessed us with a tropical downpour that only living close to the ocean can provide. Luckily we had quite a bit of motoring ahead, but the quickness of the storm really caught us off guard. We had our top companionway board down below, and opening the hatch to get it would have defeated the purpose, so I just threw a towel over the top. Luckily me and Fred both had our foulies on as it was looking a bit grey, but our dogs were not so lucky.

Poor Dixie just sat in the corner looking angry and miserable while water slowly dripped on her head. Tex mostly shivered in my lap, but we quickly found out my jacket was not waterproof anyway, so we both became soaked.

Before we even got back into the channel the rains had let up, and the sun was out again.

As we motored into the channel I raised the main sail and we started our downwind sail home.

We soon found ourselves surrounded by other weekenders who had spent the holiday weekend visiting Galveston and were now headed back for the week. We were immediately overtaken by several Jeaneaus, we guessed either from the dealership or from the charter.

Two of them in particular kept swerving back an forth in front of me while I drove. They seemed to think that I could avoid them by driving into spoil areas, and that being on autopilot gives you the right away.

They did look pretty sailing side by side though.

While I was down below prepping lunch, Fred was trying to get our sails to hold wind. We were going downwind, but our useless main was blocking all the wind for our jib. Eventually we ended up taking down the main and gained a little speed, but had to motor to get home at a reasonable time.

A few times I looked up and Fred was not driving, and was instead looking everywhere but forward taking pictures. This was terrifying for me, but at least he did get a good dolphin picture.