After much fretting and collecting of way too much stuff, we arrived at Hansen Marina in Lake City, MN about 9:30 PM for our first bareboat charter. We chartered a Catalina 25 for Saturday and Sunday, but the marina allows you to board the night before if all your paper work has been completed ahead of time.

Thankfully the boat was very clean (we had seen the boat the weekend before and it was disappointingly dirty). After moving our stuff aboard we decided to use the restrooms at the marina rather than the porta-potti aboard.

After all the excitement of packing, driving, unloading bags, and carrying to the boat (last boat at the dock) we were exhausted. We sat in the cockpit by candlelight and admired the stars until a very bugs started being pests and we snuggled into the V-berth in the bow of the boat for a nice peaceful sleep. Except a train would rumble by the marina at least once an hour all night long.

In the morning we showered, had breakfast and stowed our gear before the "check-out" with chartermaster at 8:30 AM. I don’t know what we expected but the chartermaster was pretty laid back and it was not a problem. I guess we just couldn’t believe they were letting us operate a 25 foot boat by ourselves with only 4 days of training. they are awful trusting or brave or stupid.

By 9:30 AM we were underway. We headed straight out of the marina, turned right, and generally sailed that direction all day. It was sunny with a light wind. Sometimes we had no wind. We ghosted along at 0 - 5 knots (1 knot is equal to 1 nautical mile per hour, a nautical mile is slightly larger that a mile) We felt like we were really moving if we got above 3 knots.

It was pretty neat. Time doesn’t really matter any more. At Lunch we just anchored out of the main channel and enjoyed nachos and beer. Then hoisted anchor and sailed on. Very casual. Very unhurried. In the late afternoon we dropped anchor again and briefly swam. It was refreshing.

About 7:00 PM we found an open cove area that was out of the main channel and traffic of the lake to anchor for the night. When we dropped anchor, no one was around. But within half an hour 3 other boats were rafted together and anchored about 200 yards away. It was very peaceful as the sun was setting. We busied ourselves by starting dinner (steak, corn on the cob and salad) and I put up a nylon wind scoop over the forward hatch to direct more wind into the boat and keep it cooler.

We started to see a few mayflies (ugly black bug about 1 inch long and a 1.5 inch wingspan) so I started putting screen cloth over the main hatch (all the other hatches already have screens on them). The fact that I even had screen cloth was lucky. About a week before I had seen an article on the internet with suggestions for bareboat charters. It suggested bringing screen cloth and duct tape in case the hatch screens are missing. So I followed their advice. Boy am I glad I did. By the time I was finished taping the screen over the main hatch we cold see thousands of these mayflies swarming around the boat. It was creepy. Like an Alfred Hitchcock movie. They were everywhere. I could see out the side ports the boats anchored nearby were up-anchoring and moving away. We were fine inside the boat, and that is where we stayed.

Dinner was great, we watched a little TV on a battery powered 5" set, played cards, and finally turned in. There was a gentle breeze coming in through the hatches as we swung gently on the anchor chain. Of course If you looked out the hatch you would see thousands of mayflies. and it still was creepy, but we managed to fall asleep until the trains started rolling by every hour. Apparently, the railroad tracks were just on the other side of the trees lining the shore about 300 yards away.

In the morning, I spent about 30-45 minutes sweeping the mayflies off the boat, from bow to stern, thousands of them. They were too cold to move. Some flew away but most just dropped into the lake. By 8:30 AM we had up-anchored and were off sailing after a blueberry pancake breakfast. There was even less wind Sunday morning.

At 11:30 AM we gave up on the wind and motored back to the marina. We unloaded the boat, loaded the car, Showered and were headed home by 1:00 PM. Of course the wind was really blowing good as we drove past the lake on the way out of town. We had spent over 24 hours aboard ship without touching land, cool!