Steve, Christy, Roommate Mark, and the Camera go for a sail

Quite possibly the most authentic sail yet, we put the whole crew to work replacing the mooring ball before leaving for our sail.  This was absolutely necessary as if we had just cast off......the chain would have sunk quickly to the bottom of the river and sat uselessly on top of the 5000lb granite block we bought to hold the boat in place.  Here the whole crew is hauling!  Haul harder!

After the mooring ball was replaced with the new one, we hoisted the dinghy aboard and preparing to go. 
 A little background on the dinghy placement, we're not really sure yet how we are going to take the dinghy with us when we go on long trips.  For now we have been playing around with stowing the dinghy on the foredeck ( shown here in the picture)  and towing the dinghy behind us, like we did on the trip with a large group of friends.  Both seem to work well, but when we aren't using the foredeck for anything I like not having the dinghy trail behind us.    I also learned that when towing the dinghy tie it up on the starboard side!  The engine exhaust is on the port side of the boat, and I blew a lot of water and grime into the dinghy Yuck.

Mark helping Stephanie get the super yankee ready to fly. 

 This is the view of Star Island from the mooring that we picked up in Gosport Harbor.  It was a great place to stay and eat a delicious Peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  We borrowed a mooring ball from the Portsmouth yacht club, and we're pretty sure they didn't mind because no one else was out near the islands.  From the harbor it looked like it was raining in Portsmouth for quite a while.  We were lucky that it didn't rain on us at all! 


After a delicious lunch and a smooth run back to the river we had a little excitement on the way back upstream.  

 This vessel poked its nose around the corner and we hugged as close to the shore as we were comfortable with to stay out of the way.   The crew seen in the second picture were busy taking pictures of us and waving like tourists!  I hope they had a good stay in Portsmouth.