Sometimes You Have To Trust The Forecast...

Forecast for Sunday, Dec 28th was SW winds 10-20mph and temps in the 60s. I figured it would be a great day for my still fairly new 8.0 sail. The wind window of opportunity looked to be between 10am-1pm. I was on the water at 10:30am and it was only blowing around 10-15mph, and still foggy with a light drizzling rain. I start thinking bad thoughts of a skunk. I'm schlogging around out in the lake channel and just hoping for the wind to pick up some. Around 11:30am, it does. A solid 15-20 with gusts to 25. I get to a shallow spot off a land point and add more downhaul and outhaul to my 8.0 and it then proceeds to sail like a dream with good control. I could have been on my 6.4 at this point, but it was a long way back to my launch point and to relaunch from there meant tacking back upwind for 15 minutes or so to get back out in the open channel. I'm back on land just after 1pm as it starts to rain some more. I'm back at home with my family soon after, surrounded by my kids watching that awesome Carolina Panthers win over the New Orleans Saints. A great day all around. Just goes to show....the forecast should sometimes be trusted, even when in doubt. Of course, this doesn't always work and sometimes a skunk happens. When it does, then you write a blog post titled, "Sometimes You Can't Trust The Forecast".