We put into a public beach for lunch and floated in the shallow water while eating leftovers and drinking the aforementioned Propel water. Thankfully we weren't set upon by too many seagulls because some kids down the beach were feeding them. I couldn't believe how warm the water was. It was quite refreshing actually, but if I got into water less than a foot deep it was too hot for comfort under the hot sun.

While I was floating, for just in instant I had a feeling I've had before...wondering how heaven could be any better than this. I knew exactly how, when that quick instant of bliss was shoved out of my mind and replaced with worries and concerns, but it reminded me again how tough we have it in America. With a little hard work, or a little luck, or a little suing of people who've offended us...we can lay our hands on almost unimaginable wealth and excess. Surrounded as we are by false treasures, it's easy to be lulled into a warped sense of reality. To work hard for that next piece of future junk society assures us will bring that much longed for satisfication, respect, prestige.

But I digress. ;) After lunch we got back on the boat and started to make our way back to the launch. We saw a fin in the water and thought it was a dolphin, so we spun around and went back. Then we saw several fins and thought they might be baby dolphins...but when we got close enough to really tell it turned out to be a couple small sharks fighting over a fish carcass. When one of them turned and started toward us I got so scared I lost my balance and fell off the boat.

Just kidding. Actually, they turned out to be tarpin fish. They were pretty big, for a person used to rainbow trout in the Snake River, and they acted like they were on drugs. They were swimming in circles, laying sideways with one fin sticking out of the water. Occasionally one would do a little dolphin dip and jump with it's head out of the water. They disappeared once we got close and so we turned back around.

Unfortunately, at that point the wind decided to go kaput and the tide was also working hard to wash us out to sea. We tacked about six times and, after the seventh time we'd passed the same fisherman, Sandy called it quits. Here's a picture of how we proceeded at that point:

Unfortunately we were on the wrong side of the inlet so after hiking for awhile we got back in and tacked about 15 times to land at the correct beach. While Sandy went up to get the car I tried to get a picture of the sand crab she'd spotted. Sadly, this is as good as I was able to get because every time I got close it would stop and I'd be afraid it was going to dart back and latch onto my toe:

Overall, a wonderful day of sailing. My knees and forearms got a little sunburned, but the pink is already gone this morning. And I only have a small scab over my eye from the spar smackdown, not the black eye like I'd halfway hoped. How sad is that? I thought a black eye earned from getting beaned by a mast would make a great picture for my blog. :p