NOAA was forecasting light northwest winds, eventually succumbing to a seabreeze late in the afternoon.  That sounded pleasant and relaxing.  But as I neared the coast on my ride to the boat in the morning, it was clear that the winds were quite strong.  Typical.  That was OK; it would have had to be a gale for me to not go out.

The wind was actually more northerly than NW, and was blowing fairly steadily at 15 with gusts over 20.  I still had a reef tucked in the main, so I left it that way.  I figured with the wind direction, it'd be easy to avoid any absolute upwind sailing, so the sailing ought to be fun regardless of the wind strength. 

After fighting through the as-usual congestion at the Rockland breakwater, however, I very nearly turned around.  The boat was bouncing all over the place in a deadly steep chop, perhaps caused by the stiff wind blowing against the incoming tide in the bay.  I really didn't care to give up that easily, and after a short distance the chop seemed less severe as I got away from the breakwater.  Still, though, it was choppy; the boat was making water and getting soaked; some of the spray came over the dodger and into the cockpit.  It was just one of those steep chops ("square" waves).

But soon I got used to it, and though it remained wet, I started to have fun. It always takes several minutes to get in the groove of whatever conditions are at hand on a given day. I sailed in the general direction of Isleboro, keeping fairly close to the wind without strapping the boat in tightly.  I wanted to ensure a decent point of sail on the return to Rockland, which is why I stayed high.  Several times, I thought the wind was lightening, but it never really did.  A few times, during lulls, the boat would hobbyhorse through the waves, cutting speed down into the mid 3-knot range, but mostly my speed was in the mid 5s and occasionally higher.

After a few miles, the wind really seemed to pick up, and I took several turns on the roller furler to reduce the jib.  This didn't reduce the boat's speed at all.

It was pretty much a sail out-sail back sort of sail--reciprocal course.  The sail home was great fun.  I initially chose to turn around because at the time it seemed that the wind really was slacking off, and I didn't want to get stuck a long way from home without wind.  But it was just a lull, and the wind remained generally the same on the way back as on the way out.  I had a pretty clear sail in past the breakwater and into the harbor, without too much other traffic, which was a pleasant change.

Sorry--not many pictures of today's sail.  It sure was a pretty day, though.