This has been a long summer.  I have worked and then just was my traveling wound down, my daughter's wedding arrived.  July 4th was the only time I had in the middle of the summer for sailing.  My daughter and her fiancé were down from Boston for the long weekend and we hosted a party/BBQ for them so our DC friends who were not attending the wedding had a chance to meet Frank (the Groom).  The part was a big success but on Monday the 4th we took Frank sailing on our boat for the first time.  The Chesapeake Bay mustered perhaps the best day possible in the middle of a hot humid summer.  The temps were in the 80s and the wind a gentle 8-10 knts and we sailed four hours gently heeling as Frank and Jessie lounged on the deck.  He "seemed" to enjoy himself, a very positive sign for the future.

August brought THE wedding on Cape Cod.  My wife Mary and I went up the week before along with my mom, Joy.  We found our little 4 bedroom house in Sandwich to be comfortable.  We had a great beginning to the 2 week stay.  Additional family, my wife's family, began to arrive on Wednesday and Thursday saw the bulk of my family arriving.  Of course as Saturday's wedding approached the temps rose so Friday's evening party/picnic was a bit warm and by Saturday, THE wedding day, it was downright HOT, 95°!!  The wedding as a big success and certainly a relief to be over!

The following week found us entertaining the family who remained through Wednesday.  My in-laws had their 58th wedding anniversary on Tuesday so the obligation fell to me to take "everyone" (by then about 8 of us) out to dinner at a nice restaurant.  We opted for the old converted church in town the Belfry, what a grand choice.  Everyone had a blast.

Thursday found our party shrinking to just the wife and I and my Mom and my daughter (her new husband had to be at work on Thursday).  So, since I was on Cape Cod ad it was sailing country, we drove to Wellfleet for an afternoon sailing on a rented 14' Catboat.  My daughter and I sailed all over Wellfleet harbor (about 7 nm North to South). It was glorious and made all the rest of the week's activities slip in to the back of my mind.  This was my first time sailing a Catboat, and I must say I was impressed with how it pointed for a single sail boat.  We tacked easily, in-fact we had to sail in a narrow channel on our return because we were faced with a low tide (14'!) so we sailed past the beaches where people swam on our outbound trip were now walking and driving and claming.  Great fun.

So then it was home.  Did I say I wish I could have called in a nuclear strike on the NJ Turnpike?  What a disaster!

We returned just in time for t wife to head back to school (she is HS English teacher) and me back to my daily grind of photography.  But September has brought cooler and less humid days and some glorious sailing!  Aeolus had a pair of new ST winches installed (about 3 hour task for me) and that "little" addition has made a world of difference to short handed sailing.  Last Tuesday (Sept 13th) I took my dear old friend Joe Goodman for an afternoon and we sailed the entire time, well he was along for the ride, I did the work.  Now I am building a new companionway step so Mary can use the cockpit! Tomorrow promises to be a grand day of fall sailing!  More later

Joe McCary

Aeolus

West River, MD