We were very happy that Richard, Sereno’s previous owner, made an overnight stop at Benicia Marina while on his way up the Delta. Hopefully he liked the improvements we have made and is confident she is in good hands. We were able to see his new boat, Ebenezer III. What a beauty she is.

We experienced strong gusts during our sail on Saturday so we took advantage of the situation and practiced reefing the main sail. I’m happy to report that it definitely worked as advertised and slowed us right down. One more thing to check off our long list of things to learn.

We had many ‘firsts’ this weekend. Since I was off on Friday we headed out into San Pablo bay for what turned out to be a 5 1/2 hour sail. The water was calm on the bay so lucky for me no seasickness this time. But we got further out then we have before and had a great sail with 16 knot consistent winds. We don’t always have that in the strait. And true to form we had the wind directly at our back on our return so it was slow going back. But it was peaceful 🙂

On Saturday we headed the other direction towards the Delta. The bay area is having unusually warm weather and there was no wind so we ended up motoring. We found some shallow water and dropped anchor for the first time and had lunch. Burgers on the water using Gary’s new grill he got for Fathers Day. How cool is that! This ended up to be a 5 1/2 hour outing as well but well worth learning how to anchor. Of course Gary has a sore back today. Maybe we need to look into a windlass? In our continuing quest to meet interesting people sitting at the bar, we met Ed Saturday night. I’m not sure why we always meet single men. Anyway Ed filled us in on all the Mexican restaurants in the area. That is great since our favorite at home for the last 25 years just closed.

I am happy to say that I can now dock the boat in our slip. Driving a boat is nothing like driving a car. I like the way the boat turns on a dime but no brakes is a bit scary. The key is going slow and knowing when to put her in neutral. They say each boat has its quirks. Going in reverse is definitely Sereno’s quirk. When we back her out of her slip she pretty much decides which way she wants to go. If she is going to starboard that means we have to pull a 360 in the middle of the marina surrounded by yachts to get her headed in the right direction. Then other times she backs out nicely. Personally I think she is messing with us. So I can’t say I have mastered backing her out because I don’t think she will let me. I leave the graceful spins to Gary. He makes it look like he planned it all along.

And our last ‘first’ for the weekend was making Sunday breakfast and enjoying it outside. A great end to the weekend. Happy Father’s Day to a great dad.

Here is a picture of Sereno with her new windows

We have spent most of our time working on the inside of Sereno so now we need to work on the outside. This weekend we replaced four very ugly windows. We had each plexiglass window custom made by a local company. We then had to heat each one up with a heat gun on one side and a small propane heater on the other so we could shape them to the curve of the boat. Each window was then adhered to the boat by a rubber cement that is used to install windows in tall buildings. I am still trying to get the stuff off my hands before I go to work tomorrow. It was a hot weekend to be using heat guns but it was well worth it to return the windows to their original design.

Each window takes some time to dry so it is seriously impacting our sailing time. But our marina neighbor who lives aboard a 61 foot power boat always says it is all about balance. So we got in a short sail Friday night followed by ribeyes on the Barbie.