Goat Camping on the Indian River Lagoon

A couple of weeks ago Kristi and I went camping for the first time in The Goat.  We were late getting to Honest John's Fish Camp on Friday but were rewarded with a very pleasant sunset cruise down the Indian River Lagoon.

We arrived at spoil island IR1 as the sun was setting in an absolutely spectacular sunset and were greeted by the usual suspects from WCTSS.

We quickly made camp before total darkness fell. The hot dogs on the fire tasted much better than they should. It was late and we were starving. I did not sleep very well the first night as I kept being woken by strange rustling sounds. I finally got a flashlight out and discovered a rat had chewed a giant hole in our brand new soft cooler. Good news is that he did not get into our food.

Saturday we chilled at the camp, swapped a lot of sailing lies and took the Goat out a few times in the perfect 15knot winds. Sometimes I can't decide what is more fun - sailing or talking about sailing.

We had another campfire that evening and then crashed for the night. Slept great in the steady breeze. Glenda and Mel also took their time packing up and we had a great sail together back to the launch site. The weather was a perfect 15knots with higher gusts and made for a quick and exciting sail back.

We had the first of three reefs in the sail and it was about the right balance of speed vs capsize risk for warm weather. We would have reefed down to the second reef if the water had been cold but it's still warm enough that a capsize would not be too unpleasant.

When we got back to HJFC Jose, Ron and Terry were still there and along with Glenda and Mel we all decided to have a long and relaxing lunch at Sebastian Beach Inn before hitting the road. The food was pretty good and, as usual the stimulating conversation ranged all over the place.

Heres a little video of us sailing down the Indian River Lagoon