Up and down the dock, they all shook their fists at us... "Fools!" they cried... "Lunatics!... Don't you know its the middle of November???... " They predicted horrible deaths for us... each prediction more grisly than the last... Gales! Sleet! washing up blue faced and bloated next spring by the East 155th Street pier!... Except for Steve... he wanted to come with us... he's retired now, you know.

Well, Saturday was truly grand... One reef in the main... plenty of wind, all right... we got to Kelleys in only about four and a half hours... that's not too bad... Loads of sunshine... why, this was better than we'd of had a right to expect even back in October. Bunch of fools on the dock!... what do they know anyways!... we were the only boat on the lake.

Sunday morning we awoke to an ominous howling in the rigging. It was disconcertingly breezy. We stop by the ferry terminal, its the only place in town still open this time of year to get some breakfast... we ask the lady there if she knows the forecast. "Well" she says, "I don't know what its like out there right now, but they're callin' for 50 mph winds."

50 mph? It was with a thoughtful fork we pronged our omelets. Silence descended upon the table and we became conscious of a sense of impending doom.

Its perfectly true the radio's calling for winds up to 45 knots... waves building 6 to 9 feet in the open water!... that's pretty rough!.. really, its only fools or lunatics would go out in weather like that... we start getting the boat ready for departure.

We never even got out the marina... as soon as we cast off our lines, the wind takes us and smacks us straight into the dock opposite... good thing there aren't any other boats around... we're spinning like a top... George's eyes are popping out of his head.-even more so than usual!... after all, its his boat... we're completely out of control... its all we can do to not get pounded to pieces... oh, its howling out there now... we finally get the boat tied up... I got seagull poop all over my jeans... why haven't those damn filthy birds flown south or something?... go shit on those Florida docks... hell, its the middle of November after all, Christ! its practically winter. At the dock, the boat's heeling 15 degrees from the pressure of the wind... and that's with no sails up at all. It's no good. We're completely windbound. And hereabouts the bars don't even open till one on Sundays!

Monday we had to motor home all the way. There wasn't the least breeze at all.