The breeze began light and out of the SW to W so I was able to raise full sail wing and wing for a drifting sail out of Sandusky Bay. Thankfully there were few wakes to contend with as it was the middle of the week. Once outside the bay, I set course on a broad reach towards the western end of Kelleys Island, passing the Marblehead Lighthouse to our port. As Kelly & I sailed past Marblehead we sheeted in both sails for a beam reach until finally the wind gave up and we motored the last couple hours into the anchorage.
The temperature was very hot and little breeze so a cold drink and ice for the cooler seemed very important. I assembled the Port-a-Bote dinghy then cooled off with an extended swim, checking the anchor and swimming back and forth between the dinghy and the anchor float, just to stay in the water and avoid the heat. Once I was cooled off I spent the balance of the lazy afternoon reading in the shade of the bimini. As the sun began its slow descent towards the horizon I worked up the gumption to climb into the dinghy and row ashore for the ice. I had a long leisurely walk down the road and stopped into St. Hazard's, the small resort on the southeast coast of MBI. After a couple drinks while absorbing the full brunt of their very large commercial grade fan on a stand, I collected the ice and got a free ride in their van back to the dinghy.
The forecast for Thursday was for light west winds building to 5 – 15 knots from the SW with overnight breezes expected from the SE to S. In fact, the breeze never exceeded 5 knots and was so light as to make it difficult to even determine any direction at all. I motored the short distance to the anchorage on the north coast of Kelleys Island, but killed the motor and set the sails just to spend more time on the water. As it turned out I just spent 2 hours drifting ever so slightly to the NW, but traveling less than a mile for the effort.
Given the light air, I just towed the dinghy to Kelleys and rowed ashore for a walk and some ice. In the past I had never actually been on the entire length of road from the “downtown” to the state park campground on Kelleys Island. This seemed a good time to do that, so I walked the 2 miles and enjoyed the shade trees that line most of the sidewalk. I stopped to take a peek into the new Kelleys Island Museum, but frankly my purpose was focused on the air conditioning more than the bits of history, so I continued on my way after a brief respite. Once downtown, I enjoyed happy hour in a pub, then bought ice and had a cab take me back to the dinghy.
I used the CQR for my anchor and was glad I did as one of the “scattered” thunderstorms decided to run right over us. According to the NOAA weather radio, a tornado warning was in effect for the small towns south of Sandusky. Fortunately for Kelly and me, that was far enough away that we didn't see any effect from the tornado winds. A Tartan Ten showed up in the anchorage escorted by the US Coast Guard soon after the rain started, but they didn't seem to have any trouble. There was nothing on VHF Channel 16, so I assume that the USCG crew just wanted to be sure the Tartan made it safely.
The Tartan sailed out of the anchorage about 15 minutes before Kelly IV. The wind shadow created by Kelleys made it possible for me to easily pull up the anchor without the aid of either sail or motor. Then we sailed wing-and-wing on the southwest breeze which was blowing at a brisk 15 knots. The breeze built gradually over the morning, just as forecast, so we were glad we left early before the waves could build. By the time we made our first tack a couple miles east of Kelleys, the breeze was consistently at 18 knots so I tucked in a reef in the mainsail. We sailed close hauled as Kelly tacked a couple more times, then I fired up the now-trusty Yanmar for the return into Sandusky Bay.
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