“To
me, nothing made by man is more beautiful
than a
sailboat under way in fine weather,
and to be
on that sailboat is to be
as close
to heaven as I expect to get.”
Robert
Manry, Tinkerbelle, 1965”
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| Reporting to duty! |
After a few days of sorting through all the mess I brought down here to stow on the boat, my oldest and bestest friend, Dixon, comes down to help christen Glory Days... Here he is "reporting to duty".
Let the boat projects begin... one of the great things about Dixon is that he is a doer... and he loves to dive into most any type boat repair project... He bolted the dinghy davits to the stern rail and put air in all the boat fenders while I crawled in the cockpit locker to work on an issue with the hot water heater. Somewhere along the way we managed to replace the head (toilet for you landlubbers) , pick a few guitars, and sail her over to Jekyll Isand (pics) and back... its all good....
On Saturday, like giddy little school boys, we took her out for her first outing.... Very daintily, we tiptoed out of the marina at a snail's pace, passing this big freighter on our way out... Suddenly, a couple of kids from Cordele are headed for the high seas... or as Dixon put it, "this is big... this is big".
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| Freighter watch. |
The wind was a bit much at first so we motored across the bay and successfully followed the markers that led us into Jekyll Creek... With Jekyll Island on our port side we eased through the narrow Intracoastal Waterway for the first of many times to come.
A fuel stop at the Jekyll Marina proved to be a worthy stop... I learned the lesson the hard way to always keep the fuel pump handle in the "upward" position when passing it back to the dock hand... that avoids dripping diesel fuel into the sea.... a pair of crab sandwiches there gave us good body fuel for the sail back to Brunswick. There's a great little country porch kinda place to eat at this stop.
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| Jekyll Island Marina - 1st stop |
Regarding the sailing back, everything went just perfect. We hit a good 15 knot breeze on the way back and got to feel just how nimble, yet steady, Glory Days would prove to be. Perhaps over-cautiously, I reduced the sail area... ya never know how this gal's gona ride just yet... patience, grasshopper.
Sailing underneath the Brunswick bridge is a bit daunting. It is the tallest bridge in Georgia and it gives you the shakes when you look straight up as you sail underneath her concrete supports. On the return, we had to wait out a freighter turning in the river... A safe dockage back at dock 13 and a deep breath... the first of many outings to come had been a success. Yay, Glory Days.
Joe and Dixon, maiden trip, Mar. 9. 2013
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