Seneca Lake days are over, packing for Mexico gets underway

WATKINS GLEN, New York, USA - Adm. Fox and I pulled the Spirit of Louise pontoon boat out of the water Wednesday, a harrowing affair in 15-20 knots of crosswind at a shallow launch ramp.

But after three tries, I finally drove the boat up onto the trailer (risky business, indeed) and summer officially was over for the Valois Point Yacht Club.

Doug Hazlitt offers a Heineken salute

At Village Marina we found Eric and Tina Hazlitt just about to head out for a final summer sail and were lucky enough to jump aboard for a few hours of sailing. Eric's cousin Doug Hazlitt was out and about on his newly built sailboat and, well, of course we raced!

 No need to dwell on results here, except to say it was a lot of fun in some pretty stiff breezes. It was so windy I could barely hang onto my wine glass as we tacked back and forth heading back into the dock.

We left the Spirit of Louise in the Village Marina parking lot overnight and will take the ship down to brother Dan's shop in Big Flats today where it winters under some heavy tarps.

At the helm with Tina Hazlitt tending the jib sheets

Getting the pontoon boat out of the water means it's time to get serious about packing for Mexico as well as ramping up our efforts on preparing stories and photos about our trip to Tonga and the Regatta Vava'u.

Adm. Fox set a date of Nov. 8 for us to put on a show-and-tell slide/video show at the Hector Wine Company about the trip. Gulp. Where did I put all those video chips?

And in the midst of all this, granddaughter Samantha turned 15 yesterday. Fifteen. Jaysus! Happy Birthday, Sami... We'll Skype tonight.