Photos and comments on the last couple of days

     

March is a busy month for me with no real break foreseen until mid-April.  But it has been great as there were friends visiting from Michigan last week (and another couple coming tomorrow) and a few others who plan to visit the week after Easter.  In addition to company, this is a busy time at work but that doesn't mean I don't have fun.




 Sunday was race day and it started out terrible.  At first, the wind was dead.  We barely had enough wind to get us out of the harbor and waited around for wind to come up.  It didn't look like it would and we were bobbing around in the water fighting sand gnats that had followed us out.  Finally a little wind came up out of the north and the committee boat signaled the start of the race.  There is one thing about such low wind especially when the tides were running strong and perpendicular to the wind, no one had a problem of being over the line at start... We were in a decent position and it took us 30 seconds to make it over the start line.

The first two points were incredibly slow.  When we rounded the second point, the wind died and we ended up going backwards (behind the pin) by the tide.  But then the shore breezes came in.  We were in third and we could see the water begin to move and the two boats ahead of us take off.  Soon, our sails were full and we were on a close haul to the finish.  The wind kept up, it was never great but the other two races were enjoyable.

The club mixes up the crews and the boats.  This past Sunday I was sailing with another Jeff and Bill, both way more experienced than me.  We were on the "Harvest Moon," which has the prettiest name of all the boats but is also notoriously the slowest.  We were never last, but the best we did was third out of six boats.

Day's End

 Late last year I started taking the training to become a fire fighter with the local department.  About a month ago, I passed the test and was voted in as a firefighter.  We are a part of a larger fire department (Southside) which covers most of the county outside of Savannah and few smaller cities, but out particular department is just for the island.  We have two stations, each manned by a full time firefighter/paramedic, but the rest of us are volunteers.  Last night we took off all the hoses off one truck and tested them (five minutes at double the normal pressure).  It is a lot of work as each truck carries 1200 feet of five inch line (for hook the truck to the hydrant) and another 1000 plus feet of 2 and 3 inch line.  Taking it off is easy, draining the hoses and putting them back on take time and muscle, a project made worse with no wind and the spring sand gnats...  But we got it done and all stopped for a beer when we done.

uncoupling a 5 inch line--that's not me
You can't believe how heavy these lines are when filled!