Summary of Day Four Sailing Challenge

September 18
Galveston Texas

It is a little difficult to summarize the day, since each rainy day seems like the one before! And the day after, too! There is a SEAL book titled, “No Easy Day” by Mark Owen. But I suppose he was referring to the Challenge for Sea Star Base Galveston (SSBG) to come up with alternate plans. They are really, REALLY good at it! Special Kudos to SSBG Dave Gaston and Mike Janota and their super generous volunteer help. Mike and Dave have proven far beyond “indispensable” in making this possible, much less great!

All sailing was suspended due to what was Tropical Storm Imelda; this storm morphed into a “perfect storm” of fronts coming from east, west, north and south (did I miss a quadrant?); today’s (Thursday’s) rains are heaviest yet!

But the ever-creative Sea Star Base Galveston coordinated the day very well; they presented the US Sailing Keelboat Certification Course, and administered the written test. For the late afternoon, they arranged for a “behind the scenes” tour of Moody Gardens’ excellent aquarium. The Hotel/Convention Center manager has a son in the Navy, and he was very generous with our veteran tours.

Again, Jeannie and Judy hosted another delicious dinner. After dinner, certification tests were graded and reviewed.

Since today (Thursday) is another literal “wash out” for sailing, SSBG arranged for a “guest speaker”… Kay Hire… former NASA astronaut, US Naval Academy graduate, and member of USNA’s Varsity Sailing Team. Tomorrow’s “summary” will cover her presentation.

Again, thanks to CWVC leaders Deb Pawlowski and Dave Caras, plus SSBG leaders Dave Gaston and Mike Janota and the volunteers for making it appear possible to have “An Easy Day” despite another “no sailing” day during a Sailing Challenge. It would be like someone bulldozed all the Colorado mountains just before the CVWC mountaineering trek!