Trip to Eau Gallie

This last w/e we took the lovely LaLeLu from Merritt Island down to the Eau Gallie Yacht Club. Our friends, Ron and Pam (and kids Kristen and Lauren) who are members, invited us to a shrimp feed thingie. We left Harbor Town at 9:15 am and made the 9:30 am opening of State Road 3 Bridge. This is the first bridge hailing we have made since Easter weekend when all of our boat woes started. It marked the official start of being 'back in the saddle' or make that, back in the helm seat. We are gun shy about breakdowns now - every noise we heard sounded ominous. We found ourselves quite on edge at the start of our trip. The winds were light on Saturday morning, out of the East, North East at about 8 knots. The wind changed a bit more North and we thought about flying the chute. However, just about then the wind picked up to over 10 knots and we decided against a spinnaker. (It's a very light chute - really more of a drifter sail). We did pick up some speed and were going about 6 - 6.5 knots the 2nd half of our trip. Not an edge-of-your-seat sail, but fun just the same. We were just glad to be back on the water. We got to the Yacht Club at about 1:15 and end tied to a really nice transient dock. Our boat was front and center on the most prominant dock. Our friends were on the dock for our arrival. The kids went swimming in the club's pool while the adults chatted in LaLeLu's cockpit. On Saturday night we enjoyed all you can eat/drink shrimp and beer and then danced until midnight to 70's disco. We regretfully left the dock at noon on Sunday, and headed back up the river. Winds started out right on the nose (from the North). After about half hour of motoring, we got a bit of East wind and were able to raise sail. We were sailing really close hauled and still making 5.5 knots. Not too bad considering we were sailing at about 25 degrees off the wind. We left Eau Galle at about noon and got back in our slip at about 4p. It was a great weekend!