Palm trees decorated with christmas lights, wearing flip-flops and shorts on Christmas day… there’s nothing quite like December in Florida. I mean, seriously, how cute is the City Dock this time of year with it’s adorable holiday decorations?
Not to mention, the weather is downright fabulous! Sorry, I swear I’m not trying to rub it in, but it really is pretty fantastic. Kinda hot even! …With highs in the 80’s lately.
The other day, Jereme and I headed out by ourselves for a casual afternoon sail. …And to give me a little more training in the “sailing” department. You know, come January, I’m actually going to need to know how to sail this ship since we’ll be living on her full time, and cruising from island to island.
^^The face of pure happiness. This is real people! We will be cruising full time in the very near future!
Our afternoon of sailing was picture perfect. South-westerly winds at 10 to 15 knots. Smooth seas. Only a few cotton-ball looking clouds in the sky. (I now differentiate clouds by whether they look more like cotton balls or cauliflower thanks to Chris Parker’s seminar at the St. Pete boat show!)
We kicked back. Enjoyed a very fancy Subway lunch. And mostly worked on my limited sailing skills. I learned how to sail different points of sail, including close hauled, close reach, beam reach, and broad reach. (Can you tell how super beginner I am?) We typically run beam reaches when we sail because we never really have a destination (plus it’s easy). I know I still have a ton more to learn, but I actually feel much more knowledgable and capable after today’s little sailing lesson!
Our knot meter is currently broken, so we rely on our GPS for speed info. We maxed out at 7.0 knots… Woo hoo!
After a few hours of sailing along the coast of Naples, we headed back in and enjoyed a pretty active parade of dolphins in the pass, along with a gorgeous sunset. What more could you want, really?
Happy sailing season!
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Way to go on the sailing practice! Mark and I are still practicing – but I’m considering doing the sailing courses. I want to be fully confident in handling Luna on my own.
Something tells me, however, that you will be getting more than enough hands-on experience in the near future to build that confidence very quickly.
Enjoy your warm weather and have a blast! 🙂
Thanks Jennifer! 🙂 I’m figuring the same, that I’ll probably have to *really* learn trial by fire style once we are officially cruising. -Kim