This was the Women’s #2 race of the year. Nicole, Andrea, Helen, Joan and I left Julington Creek around noon to have time to scrub the hull on the way there. Well… The storms just came out as we did, so we thought: ” it might not last, let’s just do it at Epping later”. Conditions for the motor-sail were a little rough for even thinking about getting in the water. We were completely wet anyway, but in our foul weather gear!

We docked at Epping, registered and looked around to see when Liberty Call would show up… Hum… Unfortunately, no Liberty Call this time around. We were the only all female crew to race, therefore the only ones in our class. 4 other cruiser showed up: Kara Vela, Lothlorien, Incommunicado and Bernoulli. The rain and strong winds continued to beat through the marina as we were ”supposed to clean the hull” while waiting for the skipper’s meeting. Having no competition made us feel good about our lazyness.

The dock felt just like “home” since I was next to Lothlorien, Diana’s Baba 30 who is my neighbor at Mandarin Holiday. The difference is, because of the outgoing tide flowing through our slips and her full keel, she had the hardest time to get out of there and get to the race course. So we were stuck behind until the dock master came with a power boat to turn her boat around and free her from this docking nightmare. Fiew, nobody touched anything!

Good thing we had no competition, because we did not make it to the start line until 1 minute from the start! Oups… Oh well! Even with the barnacles still well attached we passed Kara Vela early on and led the race regardless of our bad tactical moves (ok Dave, we got it!). Rain, wind, more rain and more gusty winds made us take a reef. We were hauling ass upwind at above 8 kt and the main kept dumping more and more water on our faces in the cockpit. We could have shook the reef out on the last leg, but why the struggle when you just want to finish and get dry. Still, Salsa Verde got her first first place overall !!!

Epping forest dock master was kind enough to allow me to leave her there for the week, since the weather was horrible and we were racing out of FYC the following week. Thank you so much!!!!!

PS: no photos of this race… the camera would not have survived!

Hello!

Nate has been sketching a lot of different logos for our future shirts… We brainstormed about it last Friday and he did some modifications while he was trying to teach me all I have to know about photoshop! Well, the first thing I learned is that this is a complicated software… Anyway, I’m really thankful for his great work and time. So here’s the latest logo drawing that he did. We are planning on redoing the wave pattern, to make it a little more splashing, but we want to keep it simple. Please let us know what you think!