Saturday morning, Grace and I went again to Lake Norman, this time to the Pinnacle Access Area. Our guest for today was Alea. The wind with temperatures of 56 to 80 degrees. A beautiful day!!!!!!!!!!

Sailing turned out to be an adventure. We put the boat in the water at the dock with a 14 mph wind blowing directly into the land. We had large rocks to starboard and shallow muddy shore to port. We pointed the boat out into the wind and untied the boat. The jib was set to the wrong side and the boat spun around and quickly grounded broad side into the shallow muddy shore. All our efforts to free the boat failed. We lowered the sails, but the wind drove the boat against the shore. We paddled and pushed and poled in the mud to no avail. Grace got in the water and pulled the boat down the shore. We attached the anchor rope to the bow line. A fisherman pulled the boat to the end of the dock. He warned us that the wind was blowing hard out there. I responded by saying “Yes sir, that’s why we came! Then he used his boat to pull us out into the middle of the lake. After examining the pictures of the dock just before we launched, we would have had a hard time tacking out of the area judging from the wind angle and the objects on each side. The severe drought has caused the water level to be way down and narrowed the landing area significantly.

We sailed north under beam reach with winds from 9 to 12 mph. We sailed into a large cove and ate lunch with the wind pulling the anchor along. We had to tack out of the cove. Then we sailed north up the channel. The winds diminished to 5 to 7 with some absolute lulls. All of a sudden we saw a puff coming across the water out of the north. The puff hit us with 20 + mph winds which sustained for 2 to 3 minutes. There were (2) strong puffs within the gust that knocked the boat on the gunwale twice about 10 seconds apart. Each time I turned the boat into the wind to depower it. The second time I just pointed the boat into irons and let the puff pass. Then I turned the boat around and sailed with the wind toward the dock. The wind was swirling. It reminded me of Mountain Island. I was in front and to the side and behind then back to the front. No wind then lots of wind. Once on the way back we were hit with another strong puff. The water was up on the gunwale. I turned it into the wind to save the boat. We got a layline for the landing and sailed right up to the dock with out incident. Three potential knock downs in one day. What a day!!!!!