We are sailing .......

An early start phoning home this morning got me out of bed and as soon as the sun came up I went for my weekend run along the Bayou (well I haven't done it for a while!). It was really cool this morning, actually my car sad 59F on the way there, so I had to run a long sleeved top!

We then drove to Clear Lake, near Kemah. It is south east-ish of Houston towards Galveston and passed NASA. It is the first time either of us have been that far south. We were going there to go sailing! One of Danny's friend kindly invited us on half a days sailing. He chartered a 38 foot yacht and we set sail at about 1230pm into Galveston Bay. We had ten of us on the yacht and I was given task of competent crew/second in command!

There are some amazing houses lining the water way and you pass Kemah Boardwalk, which looked like a small Blackpool. The weather couldn't have been move perfect with blue skies and light winds - enough to sail leisurely without scaring everyone on board. The bay is pretty big and there were lots of other yachts out along with a number motor boats (and gin palaces). In the distance we could see the main shipping channel with really big tanks. There were oil rigs, or rather just unmanned production platforms, dotted about the bay. The water was as murky brown as we had been warned to expect, most of it sediment from the Mississippi delta.

I was the unfortunate one who managed to block the heads (toilet) - typical. In the end the heads had to be bailed out and thrown over board because the pump stopped working. It was bucket only after that!!

The highlight of the trip was two pods of dolphins that came and played around us for nearly 40 minutes. They were doing huge jumps out of the water and occasionally coming into the boat to have a look at us - doing that thing of swimming on their side with one eyeball looking up towards the boat. They didn't swim in our wake as by that time we were going downwind very slowly! My photos are pretty poor of the dolphins but someone else on board had an SLR camera and managed to get some good snaps that we will get a copy of.

We are both feeling a little warm in our faces from both sun and wind burn - I think we will be sleeping well with all the fresh air! I cant wait to go again :)