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Wind

"wind will change when you ask it, if you ask for long enough" - Slocum Ashore A gentle summer breeze soft as a whisper stirs the air and cools those who sit in the shade A light wind entices leaves to flutter and flowers dance in the meadows. Shadows waltz lightly upon the grass. Good for sitting in the hammock. Stronger winds wrestle with trees and twist limbs to and fro smaller twigs tumble to the ground. Usually accompanied by storms - time to read a book. Very strong winds bring down even the sturdiest trees and branches, blow nests and debris across parking lots and fields. Hunker down inside. Watch Youtube videos on sailing oceans. Sailing A slight breeze won't fill the sails and they hang limp and gently flap back and forth. The water looks thick and heavy. Also, perfect weather…

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We got our ship together!

I finished my work week, tied up some loose ends, and sit on the eve of our month long sailing adventure on Lake Michigan. We've only anchored out one night on Reflection so far. We are looking forward to trying on the cruising lifestyle aboard our comfortable sailing vessel Reflection, a 2007 Catalina 350. This summer we got our ship together. Harold added davits for the dinghy and solar on the bimini to run the refrigerator/freezer, as well as recharge the batteries when we are anchoring out. We've tuned the rig, added a snubber, dieseled up, checked all the systems and engine fluids and completed our to do list. Our son, Tim will drive us to Muskegon tomorrow and catch up to us in a couple of weeks - hopefully, somewhere around Frankfort. We won't need the car for a whole month. There…

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Harold and Marcia

February 2023 - Bayport, MN - 0ยบ FahrenheitWe drove 600 miles to have our first look at the 2007 Catalina 350 that we would name Reflection We're Harold and Marcia. Harold had his first brush with sailing on Barton Pond, near Ann Arbor, MI. He and two other mates would put in their one-person rubber rafts upstream on the Huron River. Floating down the river, they would come to wider part of the river (Barton Pond) and have to paddle the length of the pond without a current. Innovation struck with the adoption of the plastic dropcloth as spinnaker. Towards the end of high school, Harold would canoe on the Huron, most often at night. In college, Harold needed a P.E. credit and chose a sailing class. He was hooked. Marcia came along in 1981, and joined Harold on the late-night canoe trips.…

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