Happy New Year

Too cold for moonlight sailing, though

We ended up with a very low-key New Year's celebration at the lake. New Year's Eve, Pat, Gerald, and I headed south, to find that Zorro was already out on the water in very light air; we rigged Black Magic up and set sail. He had sailed up to the northern part of the lake, and then had been becalmed, so it took him a while to get back to the area near the marina where we were sailing. We returned to the marina together about sunset. As we were finishing putting the boats away in the increasing dark, the moon rose big and yellow over the far side of the lake. It would certainly have been pretty to sail under that moon, but the temperature was near freezing and falling; early October is definitely a better time than late December for moonlight sailing.

We headed to Cornhusker's house to warm up and have a light supper; we then ran by Wal-Mart for some miscellaneous supplies and went to join Zorro for an extremely quiet New Year's celebration. He had brought a video of a documentary about Erroll Flynn that we watched, and then we watched the television countdown to the New Year. Before we headed back to Cornhusker's house, Zorro played the Bette Midler version of "Slow Boat To China" for us.

New Year's Day, the weather was nice, sunny with a high temperature predicted in the high 40s; there was, however, very little wind. Zorro went out earlier in the day, and then he said he thought the wind was coming up some, so Pat, Gerald, and I set sail on Black Magic to join Zorro on Constellation. The first 20 minutes or so, winds were light; we got about halfway across the lake. Then the wind became close to non-existent; it took us three hours to get back to the marina. Once again, we put away boats in gathering darkness and plummeting temperatures. (Pictures of the "sailing" are available on Desert Sea.)

So we returned to Albuquerque, and the weather reports from the lake have been of very light wind, so we haven't bothered to try to go back and sail more. Perhaps mid-week there will be more wind, although there also might be lower temperatures and some chance of precipitation. And then, we have some business matters to take care of both here in Albuquerque and up at Five O'Clock Somewhere. Plus, the new term begins next week, and there's a new textbook and a new master syllabus for the classes I will be teaching, so I have a lot of work to do on revising my syllabus and assignment calendar.