The Good and The Bad

Spoon Bay, Valcour Island, NY
N 44 37.783 W 73 24.375

Yesterday (Thursday) our friend Pete drove up from Albany to go on a day sail with us. Pete is an old friend from PTI and from NYISO where I worked. Pete's wife, Mary Ellen, didn't come. Pete says that she is decidedly unenthusiastic about sailboats that heel way over in strong winds. That was too bad, but we had a lot of fun anyhow.

We met Pete at the boat launch in Willsboro Bay. Thanks to the miracles of Mapquest and/or Google, getting detailed driving directions to such a remote site is easy. Pete made it ahead of schedule.

We had no real plan for where to go for the day. There was a mild south wind in the bay but the wind and waves were considerably stronger out in the main lake. Willsboro Bay is bigger than many lakes, about 1 mile wide by 3-4 miles long. With the wind at our backs, we put up only the jib. Once we rounded the point to enter the lake we got hit with a good blast of wind and waves.

The wind blew from the south at 21 knots the whole day. It was a very steady wind. Contrast that with the forecast of SW 10-15 knots with gusts to 20. I had thought about beating upwind for the morning, then using the spinnaker to return downwind in the afternoon. The wind was too strong for that. Instead, we found that on a beam reach we were headed directly across the lake toward Burlington, so we decided to do that. Tarwathie loved it. We were heeled about 25 degrees, and doing 6.5 to
7.5 knots under the jib only. There was no need to put up the main sail. It would have been too much sail and we wouldn't have moved faster.

In just an hour, we were across to Burlington, averaging 6.8 knots on the trip. When we got there, I called Jenny's office to tell her to wave to us as we sailed past her coffee tasting room window. Then we sailed into Burlington harbor and picked up one of their moorings. That done, we went ashore and took a walk up to Burlington's Church Street.

It's always nice to see Church Street. It is always crowded with people and today was no exception. It was crowded with tourists. Pete graciously treated us to lunch at one of the sidewalk cafes. All three of us enjoyed people watching as we ate our lunch.

In the afternoon we reversed the procedure, sailing back across the lake to Willsboro Point again in one hour flat with only the jib. We didn't get to use a lot of fancy sails, but Pete got a good dose of a different kind of boating that he does on his power boat. There were very few boats out on the lake yesterday. It would have been uncomfortably rough for a power boat.

Pete filled me in on all the news of NYISO and PTI. It's fun to keep track on what your friends are doing, what's changed and what hasn't changed. I look forward to getting a tour of NYISO's new building in September.

As we were approaching the anchorage, the wind died away and a light drizzle started. It was perfect timing for a perfect day. We got Pete back to his car around 18:00. Thanks for coming Pete. You made our day. I hope you were having as much fun as you appeared to be.

Today, we sailed north to Valcour Island in preparation for meeting our son John and grandson Nick for a weekend visit. Alas, this afternoon we got a call from John. They moved up the date of his overseas deployment by 10 days. He leaves next week and he's scrambling to get ready. He had to scratch the weekend trip. That's sad but we understand. Libby is already scheming ways to get Nick up here anyway after his dad leaves.

Jenny is away this weekend on a trip to Maine, so it's just Libby and I for this weekend.