Sailing Trip Part 4

Tuesday morning I supervised the raising of the anchor and then we motored and sailed down the intercoastal waterway into Perdido Bay. Along the way we got 'buzzed' by an army boat. This guy was rather rude and Arlin (in the airforce) muttered 'those damn army guys!' Andrew was on navigator and galley duty, so he learned how to plot our course headings on the chart using the compass rose, and then how to plot our current location using triangulation fixes. This way he was able to confirm whether we were on course or not. Even though the helmsman can be sailing the proper compass direction, there is current and wind to consider that potentially can move us off course. So it is important to verify your true location and plot that on the chart, and then make course corrections if necessary. Of course, in this modern era we would all be using GPS and computer charts, but this class is about teaching the fundamental paper methods so we were doing everything the old fashioned way. Perdido Bay is a really nice bay for practicing sailing, there were only a few other boats out there and we basically had the place to ourselves. A nice wind and not much chop on the water either. Once again we all took turns at the helm, tacking and jibing and heaving-to. And once again there were more turns at the man-over-board drills as well. We were able to sail wing on wing a little as we headed back out of the bay towards the intercoastal waterway. We spent the night at the Bear Point Marina which is in Alabama. After showering and freshening up, we caught a cab to Tacky Jack's in Orange Beach for dinner and beers. On the way back to the boat we stopped at a grocery store to stock up on the necessities: beer, wine, and chocolate. Back at the boat there was more review and studying in preparation for our exam the next morning. Luckily the instructor was practically feeding us the questions that night so I wasn't super worried that I hadn't read the book.