I love to watch the weather on the electronic devices. Radar is my friend. And I'm happy to say that we got a good dose of rain this week. It's clearing out of the tip of Florida right now and cool here on the upper Gulf. As part of my normal scan of the GOES East satellite early in the day, I spotted some interesting clouds zooming across LA, from Vermillion Bay to Lake Pontchartrain. Easily measured w/ Google Earth measuring stick at about 140 mph. No, dearie, this ain't surface winds but those "atmospheric jets" the talking heads mumble about, up about 40-50,000 ft. Just a wisp, so it was WAY up high cirrus clouds, not the more dense, lower clouds. They were plodding along but this was MOVING.
It's the back-side of the air mass that came through giving us the much needed moisture and dropping the temps down to where a sleeve feels good. There was movement all up and down the atmosphere, some clouds lower moving east behind the front, others further north beginning to move SE and S. All of it making a very fine morning here in Wolf Ridge. The sun is shining and it'll warm up tomorrow or the next day, but right now it's pretty much perfect to sit in the sun and watch the male ruby-throated hummingbird and have the second cup. There are all sorts of possibilities to this day!
HumMale.JPG
Here if you log on before they're out of the picture....
https://www.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/GOES/sector_band.php?sat=G19§or=smv&band=GEOCOLOR&length=24
Yay! It was so fine and I felt good enough to take the boat out. I took my surrogate daughter's son, a novice that had never sailed. He was a big help rigging and we launched and raised sail, whence I handed over the tiller and told him to point thataway while I tidy up all the lines. His attention wandered for just a minute and we went into irons. I explained that you can't sail into the wind and got him to try again. We were following a live bait boat and three dolphins and it still didn't work well so we swapped places and I had the helm and he worked the sail. Better. We stayed out a couple of hours and he enjoyed it, so maybe the teaching will continue. He said sailing is pretty hard but he'd never been so maybe it'll become more comfortable. And I'm going to have to teach him a few knots too.
The wind was cooperative and we tacked several times and did a couple of downwinds. I never got more than a mile from the launch because the lower bayou is very dangerous for a novice and a small boat. All in all a great day and I'm still grinning ;D