What a weekend (and it isn't even over)!

I'm sitting here inside on a beautiful Sunday. It's currently 75 and sunny outside. However, I'm nursing a pretty nasty whiskey cold, so none of that interests me whatsoever at this point.

Last night was my cousin Chris's wedding. Chris and Cathy got married at St. Sebastian's in Wauwatosa. It was a beautiful ceremony. More importantly, their reception was at Hotel Metro which is in downtown Milwaukee. Not surprisingly, by about 10, they had exceeded their "budgeted" bar tab limit. As expected, Chris and Cathy threw their booze "budget" out the window and allowed the guests to continue their merry ways.

The wedding was here in Milwaukee and we had the rehearsal dinner on Friday, so my folks came in on Thursday evening. I took Friday off so we could do some sailing before we had to attend the rehearsal dinner for the wedding on Friday evening.

The rents came over to my place around 0800 and Steph made breakfast. We finally got the boat in the water and casted off around 10:30 am Friday morning. The conditions were expected to be light - east winds around 5 knots with clear skies and seas of 1 foot or less. We had to make a quick stop at the Ale House to pick up Drew. It also gave me the opportunity to give the deck a quick scrub.

After the boat was cleaned up, we casted off from the Ale House and motored down the Milwaukee River through the Water St. and Broadway St. bridges. Once we exited the mouth of the river into the harbor, we were able to confirm the weatherman's forecast. The wind was straight out of the east, so we headed for the main gap. Drew jumped the main halyard while Steph tailed. With the main up, I fell off to a port tack and set my GPS way point for the Bell Buoy. Since the wind was so light, we were able to raise the jib while heading to our mark. My parents were quite delighted with the cruise out to the mark. The green bell buoy is about 4 miles off shore, so you get a terrific view of the city skyline from the water. About mid way to the mark, I handed the tiller over to my dad. This seemed like the perfect opportunity for a cold beer and some beef jerky.

It took about and hour or so to make the mark averaging 3.5 to 4 knots. The wind began to deteriorate the closer we got to the mark. After rounding the mark, we decided to head south to a gap in the breaker that is south of the "south gap". Unfortunately, the wind became so light, we were only able to average about 1.5 knots. I pulled my swing keel up to reduce drag. The head sail wanted to move windward, so Drew got my boat hook and I made it into a whisker pole so we could fly wing on wing. This actually helped our speed by a few tenths of a knot.

We encountered another sailboat on our approach to the smaller gap south of SSYC. Since I had never gone through this gap, I yelled over to ask the depth. They said the depth through the gap was approximately 8 feet, so there was no problem getting through as Jep only drafts 2 feet with the keel up.

We dropped the head sail and motor sailed passed SSYC. Since I bought my dad a SSYC burgee flag for his birthday, I figured he at least had to see the club. From there, we continued to motor sail back to the Ale House. What a day!

My sister and brother-in-law arrived Friday afternoon, so on Saturday we took the boat out again. Since the wedding was at 5 and I had to be at the church at 4:15, we didn't have a whole lot of time, so we motored over to Barnacle Buds for lunch.

While at Buds, they got to see the fork truck from Skipper Buds drop a power boat into the water. The boat was nice, but the captain appeared to be a complete sleaze. He was there with what appeared to be his teenage daughter and her friend. All of us agreed, something wasn't right about that situation. Very creepy.

After lunch, we casted off and motored out into the harbor so Maremy (Mary + Jeremy) could see the skyline from the water. As a side note, I saw captain sleaze and his crew blasting out of the river as we were coming back in. I felt bad we didn't get a chance to sail, but time was of the essence. The conditions were beautiful on Saturday too - sunny with light seas and east wind of about 10 knots. We motored back up the river and had the boat back on the trailer by 2:15.

After 2 action packed days, I don't feel too bad about being a complete pile of garbage today!

Also, congratulations to my cousin Chris and new cousin Cathy! The wedding was a blast! It was great to see everyone this weekend! My stomach finally stopped hurting from laughing at TJ!