midsummer

I would have had no right to wish for, hope for or dream of the weather we had today.  It should have been hot, muggy and windless with thunderstorms here and there.  But it was cool with a nice breeze and a deep blue sky.  How does that happen in the middle of July?

After sailing through the transient fleet in Crawford Bay - just a few boats as is typical this time of year - I  sailed down the Elizabeth River on a single tack, rounded the corner at the coal piers and passed the entrance to the Layfayette River.  Slipping by the two Craney Island - one historical the other built out of dredge spoils,  I reached out into the James River, the first time I have sailed that far down river this year.  I thought of sailing out to the Middle Ground Lighthouse a ways up the James, but I also knew I had a passenger waiting to be picked up.

It was back to downtown Norfolk on a single tack to pick up my daughter for the last couple of hours of the sail.  She took the helm, where she is very comfortable, and I relaxed on a pretty day.

I hope to get the log for day seven of the June cruise done tonight.  Readers may have noticed that I have left out the distance sailed on the last couple of entries.  I found I had some errors in my notebook.  I will go back to the track, figure out the correct numbers and add them to the posts.  I do like to have the miles sailed with the logs, it helps me when planning future trips.

In the meantime if you are looking for a good read about a sailing trip, check out Webb Chiles' journal for his entry about sailing a couple of hundred miles on Lake Michigan.

steve