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.

Another week, and cold again

Last week it was in the 80's.  Yesterday started with sleet and snow, but cleared up in time for the paddle.
A stiff onshore breeze left me wondering if a seal landing on the road would work.


Starting at Shelburne Farms and heading north, there was a lot of reflected wave action.  Not the most friendly for non-waterproof cameras, but there were a couple of opportunities on the return.
There's really a 15 foot kayak behind this wave:




This is the same stretch as the video, from the water side:


The jinxing power of suggestion: There's been a thread on drysuit vs wetsuit on the qajaqusa forum, so to demonstrate the faults of each, I tore my neck gasket taking off my drysuit after the paddle. Dave (wearing a wetsuit) got knocked over by a wave getting out of his kayak and affirmed that it would be most uncomfortable if he had to stay in the water for more than a few minutes.

One week and 60 degrees warmer

Strong south winds, so what we were breathing was probably in Carolina a couple of days earlier.  80+ degrees and sunny though the water is still in the mid 30's.

5 of us showed at Ferrisburg town beach and headed south before crossing to the NY side  The Palisade on split rock mountain had this waterfall, good for a cool-off.




The waterfall water was somewhat warm, but the lake is still 35ish, so still dry or wetsuit weather.  That came off at the lunch stop.

More signs of spring

Chives are up, and Molokai racers come out to train. It's still below freezing though.

Happy St. Patty's Day

A few years ago I was making pancakes and had no buttermilk, so looking in the fridge, blueberry yogurt was the closest substitute.  The blueberry juice and yellow cornmeal combined to make green, to the amusement of all.  We did a repeat of that for St. Patrick's day, and have ever since.

Today I had them with some just-made maple syrup from the backyard tree.




Some maple trivia:
In the early colonial era most maple was made into hard sugar, until white cane sugar became available (plus jugs that could hold syrup were expensive).

In pre-civil war era maple sugar had a resurgence in popularity as a protest against cane sugar which relied heavily on slave labor.

There's a French Canadian phrase for the not-so-real maple flavored pancake syrup that roughly translates to telephone pole syrup.

A lot of people who tap trees also drink the sap just as it comes from the tree, only about 2% as strong as standard syrup. There's also a company that sells it as seltzer.

Signs of spring

• The sap is running
• 3 trucks/cars  fell through the ice on Schroon Lake.
• People who've been skiing and ice biking all winter showed up to paddle.

WHere's my sap?

Freezing nights, 40 degree days.  That should be ideal for sugaring, but I tapped my one maple tree and the hole is totally dry.  Consolation prize... also great paddling weather.

This has been the least frozen winter I've seen. We haven't had to go far afield to find open water at all this winter. Oakledge is the closest of our normal summer launch points and was looking pretty accessible this week. Just a little jumble of chunks to get through. Uh Oh... no lifeguard?

From Kayak2010

Tom decided it was time to get back to skinboat season. I can't fit in mine with mukluks.. maybe next week?



We headed into Shelburne bay. The warm weather had hikers at the overlook in Red Rocks watching the rolls




Then we went out into the main lake, south almost to Shelburne town beach, and rode some light waves & tailwind back.