Families Sail Kelly IV - June 12 – 14, 2009

Guy, Murph, Whitney, Sarah, photo by Bill

The Stewart and Paviol families sailed Kelly IV June 12 - 14, with Bill and Sarah Paviol enjoying Cedar Point on Friday before "Guy" and Whitney Stewart came on board Friday evening.  Bill & Sarah drove to Sandusky on Thursday night and opened up Kelly IV for a night's sleep before the excitement of Cedar Point all day Friday.  I joined Bill and Sarah at the marina where we cooked burgers and dogs and watched the Penguins win the Stanley Cup beating the very tough Detroit Red Wings in the 7th game of the finals.  Guy and Whitney joined us in time for the final period and the ensuing celebration afterward.

Sarah and Murph

On Saturday morning we motored out of Sandusky Bay and found enough wind to raise the sails.  The wind was just westerly enough that we had to tack to clear Marblehead, so just settled back and enjoyed the sailing as we were only making our way as far as Kelleys Island, a relatively short trip.  We tacked all the way back to a spot northeast of Cedar Point so Bill and Sarah could point out the various rides and describe the scenes and excitement they enjoyed on Friday.  After the return tack, we trimmed our sails to close hauled on the starboard tack and covered the last few miles to a point just southwest of Seaway Marina.  We dropped our sails into the lazy jacks and motored into the channel.  The marina staff called to us as we entered and directed us to the seawall on the west side of the marina.  As there was an open space on the seawall, we didn't have to raft up like we did last year.  The crew did it's typical, professional duty and pulled Kelly IV neatly into the space between two other boats.  Just like parallel parking a car!

Of course, there are always jobs we can work on with Kelly being 30 years old!  Being the consummate handyman, Guy disassembled the non-working fan that would be so important to any cook in the hot galley.  After a brief inspection, he determined the problem was some loose wires so he quickly reconnected and assembled the now working fan!  The galley fan now works and our cooks will be better able to keep their cool!  :-)

For our afternoon adventure we rented a golf cart and the 5 of us did a riding tour of the Island.  Since we had 5 people in a 6 person cart, we took Guy's advice and brought the cooler!  Good thing as the tour took us long enough that each of us replenished their drinks at least once.  We saw any number of summer homes and cottages, a couple of nice anchorages, the small airfield and ended up going around most of the island, including a walk on the beach on the east coast of Kelleys.  We have frequently sailed past the east coast, so it was quite fun to view the water from the beach we've often passed on the water.

As always, we ate like royalty as Guy provided the provisions and we had hot breakfasts and dinners with handy, easy to eat lunches while under sail.  Thanks to the great meals we ate on board we did nothing to stimulate the economy at the local restaurants.