There is nothing in Manzanita Bay for us :(

This last Sunday was one of our monthly social sails. In recent history, we normally group up and sail down to Illahee State Park to have a nice picnic lunch. To my knowledge it is the nearest public dock to the Port of Brownsville, and we can often get there in a little over an hour.
However, we had exactly enough people to fill all four C-Larks and the wind felt a bit light. We were trying to avoid bringing the safety boat (12' aluminum boat w/ small outboard), which is often just used as a small tow boat to get us home when the wind runs out. So, we thought we would try to get into Manzanita Bay, Bainbridge Island and see if we could find a dock around there.

Troy took this opportunity to rig up our spinnaker boat for some downwind fun. I convinced my wife and two kids to come along with me, and we even took out two guests on this fine summer day. Once we all got in the water, the wind took its sweet time to fill in. Most of us paddled out of the Marina just to get a jump on the voyage. Luckily we didn't have to wait too long before some wind from NE developed.

We made our way up around battle point, then followed the shoreline up around the northern point. Troy and Victor were the first ones into the bay and had the privilege of trying to find a public dock in a new area. Unfortunately, we found that everything in that bay was private, so we were unable to land anywhere to have a picnic lunch break. I think we need to make some friends on Bainbridge Island before our next social outing.

So, once we realized that we would have to make the trip back before emptying any bladder, we all made an about face to head back to Brownsville. Luckily it was a nice lazy downwind ride back. Troy flew the spinnaker for most of the ride back. My apologies for the blurry shots, but flying one of these in a tiny boat is no joke.

Sandy took this opportunity to kick her feet up. Apparently her guest, Kevin, is an experienced sailor and he looked right at home at the tiller. I kept up with them for a bit, making my best effort to add a bit of "social" to our social sail.

I took the opportunity to stretch my legs a bit on our way back. That's my kids stuffing their faces. Our little boats are fun to sail, but they don't make a great picnic table.

Our adventure ended with about as light of wind as when we started. We spotted this guy soaking up some rays once we were back in the marina.