Sunday 7th March saw us out on the river again for an ad-hoc sail. I'd done a whip around the day before to see who wanted to come sailing. The final crew consisted of my 7yo daughter and my friend Leon. We got to the ramp at Matilda Bay at about 9.30, set up ant headed out at about 10ish. The wind was about 10-15knts NE and we reached out in to the middle of the river and then headed downstream on a run. We only had the main up at this stage as we were being lazy.
The intention was to get around to Freshwater Bay and pick up a vacant mooring buoy while we had brunch, however, brunch time came around before Freshy did so we pulled up on the beach on the Dalkieth foreshore. 7yo instantly decided that we had made landfall on a new land that needed a name - 'Magic Land' was chosen. We boiled the kettle and made a cup of tea, and ate our sandwiches and sticky buns. 7yo wandered off to find fairies and was able to find fairy Snowflake, who quickly became a member of the crew.
About then the wind started to die as it backed to the SW so we got back on the water before we became stranded. Getting off the beach was a bit tricky as we had left the board down a bit and it had wedged in the sand. There was a bit of a struggle to get it out of the hole it had dug itself and wobbling the boat from side to side showed a bit of movement in the case - which might explain some of the leaks. Eventually we got free and we beat across to Alfred Cove and back to Nedlands before the wind died to just a puff. Out came the Yuloh and we managed to move a few hundred meters, but it all seemed too hard, so we just drifted along for the next 2 hours trying to clear Pelican Point.
Around about 3pm the wind had moved all the way around to the SW and we started getting a few puffs that enabled us to get back to the ramp. We packed up (must get some velcro ties to make this process a bit quicker) and were home by 4.30. I pulled out the drain plugs and about 20 liters of water came out -so there is a winter task for me to get on to.
