Wednesday's trip Mallet's Bay featured the launch ceremony for Tom's new sparkly-white skin on frame kayak.

Boat builder and all around Greenlandic fixture Turner Wilson was on hand sharing some paddles that seem like they were carved from a closet rod rather than the usual 2x4. Compared to mine and some others I've used, they really let you know if you aren't canting the right amount.




It seems to balance well.



Good news, bad news...

The bad news was Turner's car lost a belt (at least) so he had to stick around to get it fixed.

The good news is that meant another paddle today while waiting on the car.

The bad news is I stuck my hand with a chef knife this morning and couldn't go.

Stormy Weather...

For the last week, and every day looking forward to the end of time, the weather forecast is something like "chance of storm"

The midweek paddles tend to alternate starting north or south of the city to give equal access. This week was Leddy Park, in the north end, and we headed north, to cover shoreline we hadn't seen in a while. The only remarkable thing was the sky had this "Hudson River School" look to it. We could see that it was raining in the Adirondacks, and had moved over the lake on that side, headed our way. And, the sky was looking pretty dark to our immediate south (left in the picture.) Time to head home, and we managed not to get rained on.

Wow, a month since the last blog. We've still been going out typically twice a week, including:
Kingsland bay. You can see the water level has dropped from the high mark. 4 or 5 more feet to go for typical summer level.


As usual, I didn't take the camera out for the windy/wavy bits. We went across to the New York side along the Palisades (3-400 foot cliffs) which had some good waves bouncing off them. With 25 knots wind we had some good surfing on the way back. Sam was having so much fun we decided to keep going past where we would just to get home, so we had about 45 minutes of full steam paddling straight into the wind to make up for that at the end.

Another launch from Shelburne Farms. A bit further south there were a lot of lilacs along the shore.



Annual club meeting in North Hero. Warmer water, and kayakers who don't come out when you need drysuits. That widens the pool of potential companions from 8 or 10 to 50 or 60.


The drawbridge crosses a straight known as "The Gut" connecting the NE corner of Champlain from the main part of the lake.