Captain John invited Sara and I to join him and the rest of his crew for a friday-night beer can race aboard his Flying Tiger 10m, sailed from South Beach Marina just south of the Bay Bridge in SF. The FT10 is a fairly new ultralight sailing boat with extendable sprit, giant asymmetric spinnaker, pre-bent mast with swept spreaders, and all kinds of other go-fast technology.
Chris and Scott invited me to join them onboard Chris' Farrier F-27 for race 3 of the interclub inside-the-bay race sponsored by Oakland Yacht Club. Six different fleets raced, each with an average of six or seven boats, on a course that was 13.7nm for the slower boats and 18.1nm for the faster boats. We were one of the faster boats.
Dylan and Roshie invited Sara and me to join them for the historic Vallejo Season Opener race on their ultralight custom Dogpatch 26, "Moonshine". We love the Vallejo race - it was the first race we sailed on Velella, our much-beloved Ericson 27.
Ben and Allison, Joe and Sarah, Amy, and Sara and I took off for a day trip to Naples. We spent the morning exploring the ancient city of Pompei, covered in hot volcanic ash thousands of years ago and perfectly preserved until just recently.
During the first two weeks in Italy I slowly devoured a great book called "Basilica: The Splendor and the Scandal: Building St. Peter's".
My brother Ben and cousin Bryan are a little too large to go mountain climbing. So we went mountain climbing. There was a lot of complaining. Much whimpering. Some swearing.
Dylan and I sailed his custom Dogpatch 26 "Moonshine" in the doublehanded lightship race, a short offshore race outside the SF Bay's Golden Gates.
Sara and I had been sailing around the SF Bay on our 27' Ericson, "Velella", but we really wanted to learn how to sail out in the ocean. We looked around and found the Sailing San Carlos website. We signed up a few weeks later for a five-day trip in the first week of 2006.
The trip was fantastic; we had a great time sailing and we also got engaged!
Friends and I summited the highest mountain (12,536') in Costa Rica, Cerro Chirripó!
