Ruthless successfully arrived at her HarborWalk slip at 1:30 PM Sunday
after an eventful trip from Port A to Freeport. First event was loosing
her sailing partner, "O'Dayous", when her motor overheated leaving the slip
Friday night late. O'Dayous decided to go to Port Aransas late Friday
night and Ruthless was to depart CC at 6 AM Saturday morning. Capt Donald
and Capt Mark calculated Ruthless would overtake O'Dayous about halfway to Port
O'Connor. Ruthless didn't realize she was still in CC until reading the
note left on the stern of Ruthless by Crew Brenda until Ruthless was about 1
hour out of Port A. She was sad.

Wind was out of the NE, but light as Ruthless put her nose on course to POC
at 9 AM, after stopping in Port A to top off the fuel tanks and get ice for the
ice chests. The iron ginny kept the crew awake and on edge. A radar
check before leaving Port A showed heavy thunderstorms out from Port A all the
way to POC, but out 20-40 miles moving NE. Decision to make the offshore
run was made with some calculated risk particularly since this was Ruth's
1st. Half way to POC the cloudy skies parted, the wind died and the seas
were flat. The crew relaxed.

The crew watched a thunderstorm develop over Palacios as Ruthless neared
the Matagorda Outer Buoy and made the 10 degree starboard turn towards
Freeport. The TS moved west across Matagorda Bay around 6 PM as Ruthless
continued her east course about 5 miles offshore of Matagorda Peninsula.
About an hour later as the sun began to set in the west the clouds provided a
spectacular sight.

Matt and Christine took first watch from 9 – midnight and were treated to a
spectacular "blood moon" moon rise which lasted for about 1 hr. until the moon
rose up behind the high cloud bank forming to the east. After Donald
arrived to take over watch, Christine asked about an image on the radar about
six miles to starboard. Donald responded by telling her that was a huge
rain storm. Both watched for the next hour as the storm moved closer and
closer to Ruthless tracking its path on the radar screen. Luckily,
Ruthless had moved far enough east and the storm was slowly moving NW.
Hard rain finally hit lasting for about thirty minutes. The storm
continued its W movement and joined another storm moving offshore from the
NE. Ruth and Donald watched with every flash of lightning that lit up the
cockpit waiting for the next rain barrage. It never came. The hugh
thunderstorm was approximately 20 miles behind Ruthless. She reached the
Freeport Outer Buoy at approximately 4 AM, navigated the Freeport Ship Channel
jetties, turned east into the Inter Coastal Water way, and was securely at dock
at Bridge Harbor Yacht Club by 5 AM. The crew immediately went to sleep
waiting for daylight for a secure final leg of the trip into Harbor Walk.

Ruthless left Bridge Harbor and turned east again into the ICW at 9:30 AM
on Sunday. The crew watched as thunderstorms and rain developed offshore
of Surfside Beach and West Galveston Island. As Ruthless neared the
intersection of the Chocolate Bayou and the ICW the high rain storm moved inland
and again Ruthless got a fresh rain poured onto her deck. The crew watched
as a waterspout developed out the of rain clouds.

Crew Matt decided to get a jump on the after-trip chores and grabbed the
soap bucket, deck brush and scrubbed the deck in the rain as Ruthless passed
oncoming barges.

Ruthless, finally in warm sunshine, was carefully backed into her slip at
HarborWalk at 1:30 PM. The crew quickly donned their swimsuits and headed
for the swimming pool, a snack, and several cocktails and beers to celebrate one
of the most exciting Gulf transits by the SV Ruthless.