sailing casita

Friday we tidied up the cabin and prepared for guests, my sister Priscilla and her husband Reza were going to come stay a night with us. We took the dinghy to meet them that evening at Sugar Barge, a restaurant / marina / RV park on Bethel Island across Franks Tract from where we were anchored.

The trip back to Casita was slow due to a bit of chop and the extra weight of 4 people vs 2, plus the water was pretty choked with weeds that would catch on the outboard’s skeg and cause it to cavitate. The weeds were a problem with just the two of us in the dinghy too, but at least with only us on board we could plane and for the most part avoid catching the weeds. We have a tiny little 6 horse outboard so no chance of planing with 4 of us onboard. We would catch weeds every few minutes requiring us to reverse to get them off the skeg. Unfortunately my favorite sun hat blew overboard on the way back and sank before we could retrieve it. Eventually we got back to Casita and had a really nice dinner and a very relaxing evening hanging out on the lounge.

Saturday was fun and the weather was perfect, mid to upper 80s and a little bit of a breeze. We all spent some time playing in the water and on the pool toy we brought. After lunch Priscilla and Reza relaxed and napped on the lounge while Devon and I did some unsuccessful fishing from the dinghy. We had neglected to bring our dinghy anchor so with any wind or current it was almost impossible to stay in one place long enough to catch a fish, we will definitely be bringing that anchor next time. That evening we made the trek back across the water to Sugar Barge. The only excitement was Priscilla’s hat blowing off just as I snapped a photo, fortunately we were able to retrieve her hat before it sank.

Sunday was spent mostly fishing. We got a rock from the levee for an anchor, it didn’t really improve our success but we had fun even though we didn’t catch anything. Monday we took the dinghy over to Potato Slough and explored it. We were considering moving the boat there but decided against it. We did see a couple of good spots further in than we had gone last year but nothing better than where we already were. We made plans to take the dinghy over to a restaurant near Korth’s Pirates Lair for dinner Tuesday night, so Monday afternoon we took the dinghy over to Sugar Barge to top off our gas cans. Monday was windier than previous days and parts of the ride were pretty choppy and bumpy, Devon was at the helm and I was in the bow bouncing around with our rock/anchor trying not to get beat up!