Malletts Bay

I got a short notice call from Sam Sunday. He was in the Islands, looking for a paddle on the way home. Winds forecast for South 15-20 kt. Waves should be good around the mouth of the Winooski, but a little complicated to give directions over the phone. Malletts Bay is easier to get to and he'd never been there, so that was settled.

With the short fetch (see map) any kind of southerly isn't going to yield big waves, but we had a good workout on the upwind stretches and a good push downwind on small waves.

From Kayak2010

From Kayak2010

skinboat awareness, excitement

This weekend was the first back in the skin boat. As I was getting ready a tourist lady (guessing, since she was in a group that was taking pictures of each other with the lake in the background) came over and asked if it was a skin on frame. Then last night, as I was strapping the boat on the car someone rode up on a bike and asked if it was a Greenland kayak, and did I use one of those anarak things with it. Was there some cosmic shift in kayak consciousness I didn't hear about? Not that I'm complaining.

Dave had his stern sink on his stealth roller. When we went over to help there was a big stream of bubbles coming out of the hatch he forgot to tighten. I figured dealing with that would be the high point of weekend excitement, but then on Sunday Phelps was out and found a body floating in the lake. What a shocker! Eventually it was identified as someone missing since March.