2 steps forward, 2 steps back.

We went for a sail this morning and it was one of those rare occasions that the wind was blowing downriver vs upriver, so we decided to sail upriver and check out the bridge construction up close.  However, the wind decided it wasn't going be all that cooperative.  It would blow a powerful 5knots or so, and then drop to nothing and we would slowly drift backward with the current.  It wasn't too bad at first, so we were able to sail, but heading upriver into light and variable winds is not a good way to make quick progress.

We slowly tacked our way up to where the ramps are poking out from each side, but just as we got within spitting distance the wind decided to give up.  It took us something in the neighborhood of 45 minutes to make it the last few hundred yards to the other side of the bridge.  In the gusts we would make 10 or 20 feet of progress, and then as it dropped off we would slowly start to drift backward.  The workers must have thought we were really interested in what they were doing given the amount of time we spent between the two spans.  We finally got a minute of solid wind and sailed our way through, whereupon we spun around and leisurely sailed and drifted in a straight line back to our launch point in a fraction of the time it took us on the outgoing part.

Below is a sketch of what our sail track probably looked like.

It was a cool, overcast day with calm water and almost no other boats.  Aside from the ferry boat going back and forth between the spans while we hung out, we only saw 4 other boats on the river.