Two years ago when Brunelle was there, she entered an ocean race sponsored by St. Augustine’s yacht club and she came in second place. This year, since we were all down there, our group decided to enter the two fastest boats, Brunelle and Seville. The wives were on Brunelle and the men on Seville. The men picked Seville since when we had raced the previous June Seville had beaten Brunelle so the guys thought they had it made.
Martha, our captain, had the women at the starting line waiting but when the horn sounded we took off along with another boat. We then heard over the radio that it was the one minute warning and not the start of the race so Brunelle had to sail back over the line and start again. We were dead last leaving the starting line BUT, with Martha’s expertise, we quickly got our strategy going and went around the first buoy on a 3 legged race. In sailing it is very difficult to figure out who is ahead because, like golf, there are handicaps. There were also two races going on at the same time so it was very difficult figuring out who we had to beat (other than Seville where our husbands were). We did cross the finish line and the committee boat asked us to go pick up one of the big yellow buoys since we were one of the earlier boats that crossed the finish line. We said, sure, we were up to the challenge. We went to the assigned one but we had to wait for over one half hour for two more boats to round the marker. We waited but the seas were building. This was the first for all of us and we were uncertain on how to get the monster yellow marker and its anchor into the boat. It took all four of us struggling to get a hold of it while the boat rocked in five foot waves but we did it! The anchor was a fortress (type of anchor) with about 10 feet of chain and the rest was rope. The depth of the water was 65 feet and with the sun setting so you can imagine what we were dealing with. After getting it into the cockpit, Martha steered to get us back to land and to dinner at the yacht club as quickly as possible. The rest of us sat and planted our feet firmly on the yellow buoy to get the air out of it so it would become more manageable. Because the current, wind, and tide were in our favor our arrival back at the inlet was a much easier passage than our initial arrival. We had gotten back to Brunelle’s mooring spot and the husbands congratulated us on receiving first place. We were not sure to believe them since they had the beer on their boat. We all rushed to the yacht club and, yes, the women of Brunelle came in first place. The husbands on Seville came in 5th place! What a wonderful day in sunny Florida and having come in first place was the icing on the cake!
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