Graffiti greats

Eve and I went for a hike in Washington woods at Cobbs Hill Park and she took me to the old water tanks that are now abandoned and left as a canvas for the graffiti artists. Wow the talent is amazing and there is one artist that is prolific and very good. Here are just a few of the best, go check them out when in the area.

Sailing Mountain Lakes, 4th Lake in the ADK's

Canoe sailing 4th Lake near Eagle Bay

Here is a video Ron took as we sailed down 4th Lake on a cool mountain day.

More OSMofHope

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXwCF5BdA7M&feature=youtu.be

One Square Mile of Hope

  Cody, Ron and myself attended the One Square Mile of Hope, it is a to raise money for Breast Cancer Research. They assembled over three thousand canoes and Kayaks and rafted up in the middle of 4th Lake at Inlet. The day was rainy and cold and I am sure effected the numbers attending but there were thousands who braved the cold and rain for a very deserving cause. Even mother nature stepped up to paint the sky pink that morning in preparation for the event.
 More pictures and maybe a video to follow of our "mountain adventure".

Stealth camping

   Ron and I have been trying to get to Hemlock Lake for an overnight camp out for a while and the opportunity finally presented itself. John offered to drop us off at the north end and we paddled south to Stoney Beach. It threatened thunder storms off and on all evening but although it rained most of the night it never got severe.
   It was the shake down trip for my new Exped Ergo Combi hammock tent and even though I didn't get it set up completely correctly I was warm and dry and very comfortable all night in the rain.

  The first pic is the camp site and my sling seat  The second pic is of Ron lazing about in his hammock on Sunday morning.

The final pic is of my Exped all buttoned down for heavy weather which fortunately we never got. I will get more shots and review the hammock camping methods later after I have spent a few nights in it and can get a good comparison to sleeping on the ground in a tent.

Hemlock circumnavigation

   Ron has been trying to make it end to end and back on Hemlock Lake for three years. I have been with him in the attempt for 1 1/2 of those years. The furthest we have ever been able to sail in one day was 4.9 miles down and then had to return for either lack of daylight or wind.
   Sunday we made another attempt. Leaving the north boat launch at 11:30 we made great time till we hit the dreaded dead spot below the monastery. The wind died to a trickle but we still were making 2mph so we slogged ahead. Most people sail either the N or the S ends and stay out of the middle because of this spot. Well it took a while but we finally drifted through the dead zone and made it to a freshening breeze further south. We almost turned around at one point as we calculated the time left to finish the seven and a half mile lake and then return, but stubbornly we pressed on. As we neared the boat launch on the S end the wind had picked up drastically and it was a struggle to to beat into the wind and make ground.
  Make ground we did and we stretched our backs, allowed circulation to return to our buttocks and then jumped back in the boats for the return trip, after all we were still only half way and it was after 5pm. Sailing down wind is a no brainer, it takes no skill, so we surged ahead till we hit the dreaded dead spot again. Again we were only making 2mph or less but still making headway till we got back to the wind and made the last couple miles hitting 7+mph as we charged onto the beach under full sail.
  We had made it, dodged the thunderstorms that were around us and had a marvelous day on the water on a 90 degree day.
  All together we sailed 18 miles, it took a little over seven hours and three years of attempts were realized. We have already done Canadice and Conesus, next is Honeoye and the rest of the Finger Lakes? Time will tell.

Hemlock High Water

After the flooding rains during the week the sun finally decided to reappear and Cody called to see if I wanted to paddle Hemlock on Sunday. The answer was an enthusiastic yes and we met Ron at noon. The water was still real high, more than I have ever seen at the lake, we put in at the north end and headed south. The first stop was at Stony Beach and our favorite lunch site by the creek for a quick lunch then up the hill to look for the first of four geocaches. It was a no find on the first. We then headed south by Eagle Cliffs and viewed the many waterfalls along the way. We finally turned around about 4 miles down and headed back north. On the way back we hit three more caches and found them all, hint: at Hemlock Falls 1 DO NOT GO UP THE CREEK BED, we climbed to a point it got dangerous and gained no ground so we scaled the bank and hiked along the top of the ravine and made the find. After 8 miles of paddling and another mile of hiking up and down the steep hill side we headed home and finished the evening with grilled salmon, portabella pizzas and conversation. Most excellent day!!!

First sail of the year

I met Ron at Vitale Park in Lakeville, rigged and headed south. The wind was up and down and switching directions but generally westerly and we made decent progress down the lake. We got about 4 miles down the lake, headed to shore for a break then when the wind started picking up headed back north. It was a much quicker trip back up the lake and we were back in no time. The water was cold but the sun was warm and the winds were fair. A good start to the season.

Berkshires beckon

    Last weekend I took a 4 day weekend and headed for Al's cabin in Colrain Mass.. The idea was to paddle the Deerfield River and explore some of the rapids along it's length. There are a few rafting outfitters that do trips in the area into class III, IV and V rapids, we scouted the class III section and decided due to water and air temperatures, 38 and 48 respectively, and the type of kayaks we have we would stick to the more benign I's and II's.
    Good choice. We did a five mile stretch of the river and there was plenty of fun to be had and a much smaller chance of going swimming. One of the highlights was watching an Osprey snatch a fish out of the river about a  hundred yards ahead of us. The sun would come out occasionally and we were almost to warm.
  We drove up into Vermont and stopped at a covered bridge, amazing wood work, all post and beam, pegged together. We did not get the $2 fine.
  The next two pics are of our take out point on the river, the one after that is of the potholes in the rock created by erosion. in that area they are from 6-36 feet in diameter to give you some scale, the ones visible are in the 6-8' range.
  The next pic is of a waterfall just down the road from the cabin, they are numerous in the area. I will have to get back and do a series of pictures of just the waterfalls in the area.
  I will also have to get my motorcycle there and spend a few days riding the endless dirt roads that stretch north into Vermont. Dualsport heaven.   
 

First paddle of the year

    I saw Cody at the store and we decided to head to Hemlock Lake for a paddle the next day, Easter Sunday, and it turned out to be a glorious day. We put in on the south end and headed up the inlet through the marsh. When we were still at the launch we could hear a noise but could not identify it, as we got closer to the marsh we figured out it was what must have been thousands of frogs croaking, chortling and making a heck of a racket. They were all around us in the marsh but we never actually saw one. We did see a couple Bald Eagles, an Osprey, ducks, geese and Blue Herons.
   We made it about a mile and a half up the inlet had to carry around a few trees piled up across the creek, paddled over 3 washed out beaver dams and finally had to turn back when it got to shallow.
  It was a beautiful day and we heard more than one group of fisherman lamenting the fact that they were in big trouble having stayed out to long and were late for Easter dinner.

Well healed ice

How many ice boats do you see in the picture, look in the back ground too. What an awesome day on the ice. With all the snow we got I figured we were done but ma nature healed the ice fast and where there was 4" of slush yesterday there was sailable ice today. What a hoot.  I had almost given up on getting out with the DN another time but what a nice surprise. There were at least 10 DN's Dave Perrin's Skeeter and Andy with his traction kite and skis.
   Layed down almost 45 miles of tracks and max speed of 37.5.

the ice was nice!!!!

The weekend turned out to to be one of the best ice boat weekends I have ever experienced. A lot of things came together to make it right. Canandaigua Lake had great ice conditions, smooth black ice with no snow on Sat. and a little blowing and drifting snow on Sunday, a lot of wind and a whole bunch of ice boats. I am getting tuned in to the Lockley Skimmer and I am getting good performance out of a very basic boat. I was hitting speeds just shy of 30mph, covered almost 40 miles and I am feeling comfortable with jibe turns as well as tack turns. Here is a quick video of me chasing down Ron on his Letzin land sailer. Oops my bad, the video is of John on his Sirocco earlier in the season in very light winds. Lets try it again. I don't know how to delete videos so I will leave it up and you can compare the ice conditions.