Recent north winds have been draining Clear Lake and Galveston Bay of all their water.  This beach pictured above normally does not exist, and you can see how close that channel marker is in the distance.

The low water conditions left us on the dock until the very last minute deciding if we should risk trying to get out.  Our boat is a shoal draft, and is the most likely to make it. Unfortunately it’s pretty under-powered motor wise, and can’t plow through mud very well. In the end we successfully braved it, but we saw plenty of other dedicated sailors who were obviously stuck.

The winds were 2-5 knots, and we watched our calculated finish time climb past 9pm.  Icicle drop dead time is 3pm.

Some boats were even flying spinnakers going upwind.

When the time rolled past 3pm and we were not yet to the second marker we decided to just sail around a bit and then call it a day.  Many of the other boats were doing the same. In the end very few boats ended up finishing.  One of which was Hamburg (pictured above stuck) who took 2nd.

The highlight of the trip for me was that I docked the boat for the first time, and didn’t hit anything! I took advantage of the extra crew to have Fred show me when to turn etc.  Just need to do that a few more times before I have it down.

Thanks to Mike Cameron and Tina Caron for a couple of the pictures!