By Joanne Collins
Anticipation
mounted through the week as we checked the weather forecast daily to see if
we’d finally have a nice weekend for the sail of Eagle’s
Wings to Galveston’s Harbor House.
WOW – the weather gods really outdid themselves!
Friday dawned with blue sunny skies, a North Wind (!) and a strong
outgoing current that swept us down the Ship Channel in a record 3-1/2 hours
from Waterford to the Harbor House.
When we arrived
the crews of Yaga (with Rear Commodore Dan Fuller), MaRosa,
Pacifico and Integrity helped us dock and we returned the
favor when O-Be-Joyful and Dulcinea arrived shortly
thereafter. We all agreed to meet
for sundowner “docktails” and munchies on the dock. It was a spontaneous party and we traded stories of latest
boating adventures. Richard and I
decided to dine at Luigi’s, a gourmet Italian restaurant on the Strand, where
we shared a superb meal.
Saturday
dawned with Bristol weather and we followed Dulcinea out
the jetties for some off-shore practice. We
skimmed the water at our hullspeed, 7.5 knots!
The Gulf was awesome, just the right amount of wind in our sails and wave
heights of about a foot. We heard
from Madeline on Pier Pressure, who decided to dock at the
Galveston Yacht Basin. Apparently,
there are some transient slips that are now available.
In fact, rumor has it that they are building a new transient dock that
will be available later this year!
Other members
of Waterford started arriving by “land yachts” in the late afternoon for the
festivities. We greeted our
Commodore Russ and his first mate, Sandy and their 2 sons, s/v Voyager
as well as Social Director, Karen Albrecht and her husband, Alan Albrecht, s/v
Milagro, Fleet Captain, Julie Gibb and her husband, Colin, m/v
Julie Ann II and others….too many to list! After dockside wine & cheese, we headed out for dinner at
Pier 21 and Willie G’s. We then
hurried back for the nighttime presentation film (Part 2) of the “Search
for Lafitte’s Treasure.”
It was a spectacular show and we all wrote down the clues and
decided to head on out in the morning to search for the mysterious alabaster
building at Ball & 23rd streets, which was purported to have
important clues for location of the valuable WYC treasure chest.
Sunday was
another gorgeous day in paradise. After
speculating on the clues and munching down a memorable delicious breakfast on s/v
Dulcinea, we regretfully took off for home port.
The weather was forecast to be perfect 10 knot winds, but you know what
they say about Texas Weather! It
changed and we found ourselves in 27 knot winds.
Karen and Alan decided to accompany us back and were a great help in gib
rolling and winching! We arrived
back at Waterford at 3 p.m. and drove Alan and Karen back to Galveston to pick
up their car and dine at Caseys.
What a super weekend! Let’s do it again real soon!
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