You can't go sailing if there's no water!!

When I bought my boat and began outfitting her for our big trip, I assumed that we'd take her out regularly for fun and practice. 

NOT!!! 

No, that's not the boat's former name speaking from the dead.  It seems that we have a bit of a problem in these parts:  in the winter months, the wind blows out of the north pretty much all the time.  

The photo above is a screen shot from "PredictWind", a super-duper computer app that graphically shows wind speed and direction over the next several days.  The date shown is Friday, January 15 at about mid-day; a pretty typical day, actually.  Green represents a 10-knot wind, and yellow a 15-knot wind.  As you can see, it's straight out of the north-northwest.  Since Galveston Bay opens to the Gulf of Mexico to the southeast, that wind blows all the water out of the bay.  And it's not just me - EVERYBODY in Galveston Bay is suffering from non-boating syndrome (COVID notwithstanding).  There are many days when Dragonfly is literally sitting on her keel here in our marina slip. 

When we pulled into our marina slip for the first time back in July, we had a bodacious wealth of water, so I assumed this was normal year-round.  Little did I know that it's mainly summertime that brings all the southeasterly winds.  In hindsight, I should have tried harder to get Dragonfly out more.  (But again, she had an awful lot of serious maintenance issues back then.) 

What's really crazy is that the lunar tide projections are no help either.  Here is a graphic of the lunar tide projection in Clear Lake for the entire month of January.  

The thing that really jumps off the page is:  NEARLY EVERY DAY IS SIMILAR.  You get a high tide right after midnight, and a low tide right after noon.  How is this possible?  I thought that lunar tides were controlled by the MOON, which is always in motion around the earth - which means that high and low tide times should gradually shift every day.  But they don't!  Go figure.

The maddening part of all this is that Joan and I have not had any opportunities to practice the skills we will need on our trip.  We have not deployed the anchor.  We have not raised up the spinnaker.  We have not done a man-overboard drill.  We have never been out when the wind is over 5 knots.  We have never heeled more than a couple of degrees.  I don't know how fast Dragonfly can go on sail power, or how she handles on a heel. 

And then, looming over the horizon, is our planned departure around the first of February.  How the heck are we gonna get out of here?  

Well, I do have a plan:  Watch the forecast, and find a weather window where southerly winds prevail for a day or so.  And then:  leave the marina in the wee morning hours, long before sunrise, when the lunar tides are at their peak. 

I'm sure you're thinking:  How are you going to maneuver out of the marina in the dead of night?  

To answer that question, I walked down to the end of the pier after dark, and brought along my super-bright spotlight.  I shined it down the channel, and lo and behold:  I was pleasantly surprised to see that the channel markers all had reflective, florescent paint.  Shine a bright light on them, and they light up beautifully.  No trouble finding the channel in the dark!  Here is a photo showing the channel out of the marina at night, all lit up with my super spotlight.  You can easily see red marker "8" on the left and green marker "7" on the right.  (The band of horizontal lights in the distance is the northern shore of Clear Lake.) 

So there it is.  May the gods of the sea smile favorably upon me and my vessel.  Stay tuned!