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.

How close can you get on Conesus Lake?

The wind was out of the south and predicted to go more south west so Ron and I decided to hit Conesus Lake. The day was warm and the water cool but not cold yet, the sun was out and it warmed up enough to remove the jackets and soak up the sun while enjoying ten miles of excellent fall sailing. Here is a video of a close pass, close enough to put a little water in Ron's boat from the bow splash.

SOGA 2013

The Southwestern Ontario Gliding Association has a fun competition each year. Joel and I took a road trip and although two out of three days were blown out, the one flyable day was awesome. Graziano Mele made this video of some of the fun. Enjoy!!!!