Today we took Cat 35 out for our first sailing outing on the big boats without an instructor and it went really well.  We only stayed on the water for about 4 hours, but it was plenty for us.  Nima and Caryn weren’t feeling too good, so 4 hours was about the limit.  The winds were really strange, as there was about 2 miles of no wind before getting into the regular wind stream.  It took us a long time to get out into the wind, and we were really far off the coast.  I am glad we got some good wind after all, as it would have been a disappointing sailing outing without it.  Julian was a lot of help around the boat as he had done a good bit of sailing with Lasers, so he knew the basics.  Bri didn’t seem to be enjoying herself all that much, and was the only one not to take a turn at the wheel.  Since we had to go 2 miles offshore to get wind, the waves were pretty big compared to what we had normally been dealing with.  It made the adventure that much better, but also made the passengers that much sicker.  When we were moving it wasn’t too bad for them from the sounds of it, but when we were hove to they were feeling really bad, especially Nima.  We had lunch out on the water after we had hove to, and it was really tasty.  Julian and Bri brought a tasty spinach and artichoke dip, along with some margarita.  As we were heading in the racing had move to only a couple hundred yards from the mouth of the harbor, and we got a little in their way.  They were far to close to shore, but there wasn’t any wind anywhere else within a few miles.