Great Sail Today

Wow what an amazing sail today out on the Great Salt Lake!

I hadn't even thought about sailing until Friday, and then I checked the weather. The weather looks pretty decent, like 7 knots of wind from the North in the afternoon and evening. Warren had a friends birthday party to go to at noon, but the wind didn't pick up until later anyways.

While Warren was at the party Mark and I loaded the car with the sailing gear, which was actually pretty easy since it was all still ready from last weekend.

Once Warren and Nikki got home, we headed out. When we got to the wind, it was a bit amazing how much wind there was. probably 10 knots with decent gusts. The only issue was that it was a North wind. The Great Salt Lake has 60 miles of fetch, and at that distance the super heavy super saline water has a lot of time to build the waves up that run with a really short period. Luckily it had only been blowing for a few hours, but it was a bit rougher than we prefer.

But the steady wind was amazing! We moved along pretty well, though there was a storm to the West- South West and I think that was fueling some of the better than expected winds. It also was something I watched closely for lightning, and heavy rain. We stayed out deeper in the lake to avoid it which seemed to work pretty well.

The kids had a good time, and the waves calmed down a bit. With no actual destination we were also able to move across the waves are a great angle that kept us from slamming around.

Luckily the waves were pretty calm when we started heading in. The sun was going down and it was actually pretty cold out there. I let mark take the helm and motor us in to our slip, and he did great at it.