Arriving at Kingsland Bay the sun is breaking out and temp up into the 70's. The plan is to head south, cross over to New York, keep going south to Barn Rock for lunch. THen go north along the New York shore to Split Rock and surf home on the wind predicted to shift to NW by afternoon.
Lunch was at the lean to across from Basin Harbor.
No sign of the Ol' Philosophizer who was supposed to be around this weekend. He might have done this stretch on Saturday.
On the short trail from the landing up to the lean to was this knee high orchid overlooking the lake. Anyone know the variety? (edit: lady slipper)
Heading north, the Palisades are as impressive as usual.
We ended up taking a beach break on the far side of Split Rock. I tried a few minutes of swimming to see how well the drysuit with just shorts and tee shirt inside protects from mid-40's water. The drysuit kept me dry, and the personal flotation device kept me flotated.. pretty comfortable overall, but if I was swimming from the middle of the lake to shore some gloves would be nice.
On the "surf" back from Split Rock we went by a couple of sailboats with their sails hanging limp, and as you can see, not much waves.
We got back to shore around 5:30 and could see the sailboats had started to move out on the broad lake. The Diamond Island weather station showed the wind kicked up from zero (when we were out there) to 15 knots by 6. Next time...
1 comment:
Sorry we missed you, Don. It's a big lake you play on, and the chances that we would connect by chance were pretty slim. When we come back in August,I'll make sure I send you our schedule.
As you surmised, we paddled from Westport to Essex on Saturday, stopping at Partridge Harbor, the Palisades, and a beach of multi-colored, round stones just north of Split Rock Point. We were off the water by 2:30, and by 2:45 the southeast wind had covered the lake with whitecaps.
On Sunday, we left Essex at 10 and reached the DEC Boat launch in Willsboro Bay by 3:00. This day we stopped at a multi-colored sand beach at the mouth of the Boquet River, and on another stone beach north of Ligonier Point. Both days were marked by capricious winds that constantly changed directions, and cloud formations that created the impression that each side of the lake was in a different season.
We have now paddled seven days on Lake Champlain, and have yet to have a day that didn't thrill us. As I said in the beginning, we will be back, and I will try to be a little better about letting you know our plans. Thanks for sharing your lake with us.
Ol' Philosophizer
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