First sail of the season

Maunie usually stays afloat through the winter, with just a weekend of hard graft on the scrubbing grid to clean and antifoul her bottom. So we get some winter sailing and enjoy that slightly smug feeling of watching everyone else struggling to get their boats ready for re-launching at Easter or even later. This year it's come as a bit of an unwelcome novelty, after all the winter work in the boatyard, to make our first sail as late May!

Actually we did think about it last weekend but the forecast was lousy and Dartmouth was hit by a full gale on the Saturday night. Anyway, our first daysail this weekend was worth the wait - lovely sunshine and a gentle but slightly chilly Force 3 north-easterly to allow us to remember how to sail. There were quite a few boats out and Maunie went very nicely indeed.

The only downside is that from on board we can't see her shiny new paintwork so we both did a slight double-take when mooring up alongside our new neighbour on the trot mooring. We climbed aboard 'Caicique' and looked down to see the new white hull where we're so used to seeing dark blue. We need to get some photos of her on the water!