Bagels and Barges in Burlington

In trying to scope out the weekend, I asked if there was any good skating ice on the lake. My friend said her kid had just been to a skating party on the barge canal and it was pretty good. We made plans.. the bonus is that the parking access is right at Meyer's Bagels.

Meyer's is a relatively small, decidedly informal bagel joint. They have a big wood fired oven right behind the counter and the baker pulls out a dozen at a time with a long peel that somewhat resembles a Greenland paddle. I'm never really sure what their hours are, but "breakfast rush" is pretty reliable.

The Pine Street Barge Canal doesn't really go anywhere like the Erie Canal (Albany to Buffalo). It is more the nautical equivalent of a railroad siding. It is a few hundred yards long and was put in to give barge access to the line of industrial buildings along Pine Street in the 1800's. If you google it, most hits have some reference to it being a superfund site, thanks to a coal gas plant that dumped a bunch of coal tar. That is now pretty well capped off, but they are considering the site for a connector highway which would mean a lot of excavation (and opening the can of worms).

The canal connects to the harbor under this railroad lift bridge:



Since the kid's skate party there had been a little snow. Still skatable, but you can't see the bumps, so I wasn't being too bold WRT triple axels or even backwards crossovers.







Saturday night was a Vermont Paddle Club pool session. They are mostly a whitewater crowd, but through conspiracy most of the people this night were Greenland paddlers (aka the "Boyz in da Hoodz" (not all boys though.))
One social difference is that the VPC folks were there maintaining an off-season link with their sport and we had been out on the lake paddling and rolling within the last week.

So why go to the pool? I got to use the skin boat, which I haven't in a few months because, among other considerations, it is too tight to wear neoprene booties.
It's also an opportunity to try other boats. I managed norsaq and hand rolls, and upside-down paddled the length of the pool (not eager to do that in 32 degree water!)

President's Day

At Shelburne Beach yesterday there were a bunch of ice sheets to negotiate, like thie one Dave is drifting away on, so there was some use for the shortie ski poles and/or nail boards. This picture was at the end and he's looking for the pole he dropped.


It was a nice sunny day, around 20F and 15 kt breeze. This eagle stayed with us through most of the trip. Maybe thinking we were predators and would leave some dead fish floating in the water.


A cool-off/rest stop at about our farthest point:

Tom took some pics of me rolling, but kept asking me to do them over so he could, say, reframe the shot:






This inevitably lead to a brain freeze headache:


I caught Tom in a reverse sweep:

January Thaw, in February

The temperature peaked at 50 in the way dark early morning, and started coming back down. The scouting call came around 8:30 AM: "Meet at Coast Guard at 9:30"
Not much notice, but OK, I guess. I asked how clear the harbor was.
"Oh, did I say Coast Guard? I meant Coach Barn (@ Shelburne Farms)."

Glad I found out!

Shelburne Farms is on the outside of the point that forms Shelburne Bay. Driving by, I could see the bay was still frozen up enough for trucks to drive out on the ice for fishing or whatever (safely? I dunno!) The one in the picture is a 6 wheel dump truck.



The cove by the barn was full of nominally loose chunks, but packed too tightly to paddle through.


There was clear enough shore closer to the point.




Soon we found ourselves in a windy wavy sleet storm. Fun, but decidedly camera unfriendly. By the time we got back. the wind had blown that packed ice in the cove off shore and it had spread enough to paddle through.


Look closely (or click on the pic) and you see above a pair of cut down ski poles on the back of Dave's kayak. They seem to be more effective than nail boards in moving across sheet ice (and decidedly less dangerous to neoprene)

Back at shore a seal landing finished the trip.

On the touristy side, the farm has this sleigh to give rides around the grounds. It might look nice with 3 or 4 kayaks in the back.

Freezing up

A couple of weeks ago we started having to hunt for clear shoreline. The beach at Oakledge park had a hundred yards or so of ice, but we trucked through the woods to some clear shore near the point. Headed south to SHelburne bay which was mosltly iced. A south wind was calving some off so we ran up on a sheet and rode downwind on it for about 20 minutes.

This past weekend it looked like solid ice out to Juniper Island.. no kayaking unless we were willing to trek a while.

Things look a little better this week. It is supposed to be above freezing part of the weekend. THey are having a Penguin Plunge (swim in the ice water) Saturday at the Coast Guard station, which means they will clear enough ice for us to go rolling Sunday if nothing else is available.

We were supposed to go out New Year's Day, but at the last minute the instigator got cold feet with a windchill of around -25 and canceled the trip. Which brings us to this weekend. Cold, 14, but sunny and calm.

Coast Guard ramp was frozen in, so we met at Perkin's Pier, still part of the downtown waterfront. When we got there there was a duck frozen into the ice. Tom tried to melt the ice by pouring water on it, but to no avail. I had a ripping hammer in my trunk which he used to chop the ice away. The duck ended up running to the water with 2 big blocks of ice on its feet and seemed able to swim ok in short order.

On to the paddling.. My first time out in cold weather with mittens.. I could get used to that, except for the bit about getting the tuiliq hooked into the cockpit rim. We headed north, and Appletree Bay had a good load of "bergie bits" which weren't just shards of sheet ice, but chunks reaching a foot to a foot and a half deep. This led into a discussion of how that was the first sign Shackleton had.

We did lots of rolls of various kinds, pushing to the slightly exotic behind-the-neck, and making sure to do some on the off-side. Underwater was still comfy, except for that bit of exposed face giving brain-freeze headache, so I wasn't eager for extended hang time.

The other guys had black tuiliqs and I could see steam coming off where the sun hit them. I don't know if my red one was doing that, but once we got moving again a shell of ice formed. We stuck close to shore through the city on the way back and did a couple more rolls to clear the ice just before landing.

In praise of heavy kayaks and mittens

Yesterday was my first time out in neoprene mittens. They promised to be warmer than the gloves I have been using, and sure enough, my fingers weren't cold at all! I must admit it was 45 degrees warmer than last week. We'll have to see how they work in more seasonal weather.

The reason it was so warm was strong southerly wind, so the 55 degrees here was probably the same as it was in Virginia the day before. My sponge was encased in a 10 pound block of ice from last week, but at least it could be removed from the boat. Dave had his Kevlar (lightweight) kayak on the concrete boat ramp and it blew right over to the rocks on the side, and eventually onto the lake. Fortunately I was standing close by and already suited up so I could jump in and grab it.

We took off pretty much into the teeth of the wind, catching a little lee here and there from an island or point. Chris and I hit land somewhere around Gross Point and since the other 2 had turned back, figured we would go no further. The wind had diet, but came up again more from the west. That brought some short lived rain, and meant that we were going just a bit down wind instead of straight downwind. The fetch was now only about a mile, so the waves were considerably smaller. A bit of boost, not enough to beat us up, warm wind in the hair, what more could you ask? We almost caught up with Dave and Tom, getting to the ramp just a couple of minutes after them.

Solstice

Saturday seemed like a great day for kayaking. Sunny, calm. Just have to shovel out from Friday night's snow storm. The others want to go Sunday. Oh, yes, the first day of winter.

For some reason it's become traditional to roll on the Solstice. I'm not sure why.. maybe getting closer to the bottom of the world where the sun is hiding?

The first day of winter turned out to be the real deal. 10 degrees and snowing heavily.


The new camera doesn't seem as water resistant (or maybe it's just the "new" part.) I'm not eager to use it with wet neoprene gloves, so there's just a shore shot.

If "2 day delivery" included Saturday, or the local shop hadn't sold the last pair of "large" the day before I went in, I'd have mittens by now, but that's a different story (maybe the same story.. if the mittens are easier to get off and on I may be back to taking on-water photos.)

My official Solstice roll came immediately after seal launching off the pier as the stern landed on the edge of some ice and flipped me.

It was a slow day for the Coast Guard (where we launched.) There were a couple of guys out knocking ice off their boats. They asked if we all had drysuits and how long we'd be out, and warned of the bad visibility.

We took off upwind (North) staying in sight of shore. There were thin sheets of ice in some sheltered areas, and lots of pizza size slush bunnies. About the time we turned around, the wind did too, so we had snow in our faces both ways.

I was starting to emit creaking ice sounds with each stroke. The loom of the paddle had hanging icicles, and the gloves had a hard layer of ice that cracked if I straightened my fingers. Inside the neoprene and Goretex, all was good.