Category: Life

We had a gorgeous night aboard Mike’s new to him j105 Purple Wahoos to sail Fishing Bay Yacht Club’s Moonlight Race on June 15.  Mike wasn’t able to sail so Clark, Scott, Jenny and I sailed the boat along with two kids.  The race was set to start at 7:30 at night and the wind was forecast to pick up overnight and so the RC picked the shorter 14 mile course for all 6 boats sailing. We were in the PHRF-A class against J109 Afterthought. Purple Wahoos is a shoal draft wheel driven J105.

The RC got the race started about 15 minutes late. That was enough time for us to sail over to what would be the finishing mark and get a ping on it allowing us to find it later in the dark. The start was downwind- we approached at the pin and set the chute just after crossing the line. The rest of the legs would end up being somewhere between upwind and reaching. I trimmed jib, navigated, did pit and drove half of a leg.

We had a great race and managed to correct to 1st in our fleet and 2nd overall.

PICTURES | RESULTS

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I got to join Jess for a trip to DC for a long weekend. She has a tradition of taking a Friday off every year and visiting a museum with Farley and this year we visited the Museum of Natural History and saw the exhibits for fossils and diamonds.

In the afternoon we visited the National Gallery of art and focused on the 17-18 century Italian, 18-19th century French tour, Dutch and Flemish galleries and 17th centuries sculptures.  Jess had some pieces that she had read about so we all played scavenger hunt to find them.

We tied to go to Jazz in the garden, but a few minutes after it started a thundercloud rolled south of us and so the event was cancelled.  Nevertheless we improvised and ended up having dinner on the roof at Neil’s. We followed that by an improv comedy show that Celeste was in.

Saturday was brunch, shopping in Mount Vernon, lunch and going to Neil and Sonya’s engagement party.  And Sunday Jess and I went running around the tidal basin and visited a market and a bookstore before making our way home.

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Saturday I ran the Jackson River Trail Half Marathon. I’ve had a half marathon on my bucket list for a while and since I had a free weekend – this was the only one going on in the state – so I went. The Jackson River Trail is a rails to trail path in Covington VA almost to West Virginia. Even this time of the summer it was cool mid-60s to start and the trail is almost entirely shaded so we never got that much sun or heat.

I started out great and got with a group to pace myself around 8:40 and not run too fast.  That worked for a about 6 or 7 miles when I learned it was in fact too fast and I started to fall apart from there.  I made it through, I learned a lot, and now I have a benchmark to try and beat and improve my time.

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It was a hot night for a run – this year’s Anthem Corporate Run was another muggy night in Innsbrook with dozens of companies represented.  I’ve been doing a lot of running the past few weeks and I used this as and opportunity to beat my 5k time. I started out a little too fast running the first mile in 7:10. I slowed up a bit as the race went on and finished in 23:29 – which was good enough for 8th fastest at my company. The party afterward was well attended and it was fun catching up with past colleagues and friends at various companies.

PICTURES

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This week we got a new Stand Up Paddle board to use down by the river. I found a deal on one we liked by Isle that should be a good all-around beginner board. We took it to the river and Jess and I both got to try it out on a beautiful day. Lucky for us we stayed upright and didn’t fall in as the jelly fish in the creek were unreal.  Looking for many more weekend mornings of paddling.

PICTURES

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We started the weekend hosting a cookout for the YAM group at FBYC in what has become a Memorial Day Weekend tradition. We had great weather and a nice turnout.

Saturday was to be power boat day getting Jess’s father out in his power boat for the first time. We got it in the water just fine and motored out into the creek and the newly rebuilt engine ran just fine. While out there I checked the bilge and saw a lot more water than we should have seen for only being in the water for 15 minutes. We could see the thru-hull that water was seeping around and the bilge could keep up with it, but we headed back to the ramp anyway.  Back at the ramp I touched the thru-hull fitting for the raw-water intake for the bait wells and it disintegrated leaving 1/2 inch hole for water to come through. We quickly put the boat back on the trailer and gave up hope of power boating this weekend while seeking professional help.

Later in the day Jess and I went for a swim in the creek and Jess’s father was give a dozen crabs caught by a neighbor that we scrambled to figure out how to cook for dinner. We ended the night cooking smores on a fire down by the water.

Sunday we sailed the Snipe in the Open House Regatta. Monday we visited the Hallieford beach and then did boat-work – we added fiberglass to reinforce the back deck of the snipe.

PICTURES

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