The annual BLA “regatta” was held the day before the La Mona full moon party. And once again, somehow the Lady Carolina crew were put in charge of organizing when Pit on Karma Seas left a little earlier than planned for San Carlos. So, Joel was the regatta Grand Pubah, which included officially starting the race, making game time rule decisions, and awarding the trophy to this year’s winner.
The regatta was a race from the BLA village anchorage to La Mona and back. The Exodus crew got all decked out in our matching blue Exodus shirts (thanks Marsha!) At least we looked good, because it was all downhill after that. The plan was to raise anchor about 20 min before start time so then we could get the sails up and engines off in time to cross the start line under sail. However, when we were raising anchor and the windlass cut out on us. After troubleshooting for a little while we ended up raising the anchor manually, and by that I seriously mean manually. Tim raised it hand over hand. Mine and Alex’s jobs were to feed the chain into the locker and Brenden’s job was to standby with a hook that was attached to a line attached to a cleat and hook the anchor chain secure when Tim needed a break. What fun! By the time we raised anchor and got our sail up the “race” had already started, but we actually weren’t in last place, believe it or not. We had a great sail across the bay, but when we got back (in 4th place, I might add) the windlass still wasn’t working and we had to drop the anchor manually as well.
It was a lot of fun seeing all the other boats under sail, and the winds were in the mid to high teens, but we were sailing into the wind both directions, I’m not sure how that worked out. The only rule established ahead of time was that the lead boat decided which buoy to round and then all boats would follow around the same buoy. However, two lead boats diverged pretty substantially, so as they were each approaching different buoys, a ruling by the Grand Pubah had to be made, and in keeping with the laid back cruising philosophy it was determined that any buoy would be OK. True Blue V round their buoy first, and we followed Sara M around a different buoy. Although we finished back in the pack, we could at least celebrate that we had beaten Lady Carolina.
When we got Exodus settled back at anchor at the village, Tim and I decided to get the water hammocks out and relax in the water with a cocktail. Of course, right at that time and Elefante (strong westerly wind) kicked up, and between the hot wind and the big swell, our relaxing float was anything but. Luckily it didn’t get too bad and we were all able to meet on shore for a great dinner together at Costa del Sol.
Gresham Family Exodus 