.........................................--- A Great Day on the Lake ---
...........................................--- Thursday July 30, 2009 ---
Night's Anchorage: South side of Lake about 2 miles from marina & park ramp.
( N. 49o 35.737' -- W. 117o 07.192' ) Sailed about 9 miles -- motored about 3/4 miles
---------------------------------------------------------------------
What a great day for us. After a good nights sleep and what is starting to be a habitual ....
........
........late rising for us we fixed breakfast in perfect weather.
After eating I was in the cockpit and had just removed the pop-top cover. Ruth was in the cabin with the pop-top still up. I noticed.................
........
.................. what appeared to be about a 12 inch trout floating towards the boat belly up. I figured it was dead, but ever so often it would twitch a little. I gave a quick though to how Bald Eagles are really scavengers and thought it would be neat to see one of those take this fish, but put that thought down to wishful thinking even though we had seen a number of Bald Eagles since arriving here.
The fish floated to within 10 feet of the boat and I pointed it out to Ruth. Just as she was looking at it a full grown mature Bald Eagle swooped right down on the fish, but just as it got within the last couple feet of ii he or she spotted us an averted picking up the fish. What a great sight that was! She flew off and into the nearby forest. We continued to watch the fish and the sky hoping for her return. After about 10 min the fish floated about 20 feet away from the Kera Jane and here she...........
........
............came again. I tried to snap a picture of her and got one off the stern of the boat as she flared her wings to slow her decent. Then she just plucked the fish out of the water so fast you thought the fish had just disappeared. With just a couple flaps of her powerful wings she rose, banked off towards the tress and disappeared back into the forest. We were thrilled! .I had tried to get a second picture, but just got a picture of the side of the generator cover, but I'll have a picture of her in my mind forever.
Next we set the boat up to sail and raised the anchor and motored out a short ways easily. Anchoring and getting off anchor is getting pretty un-dramatic for us now in most cases. Today's goal was to try and sail as far back towards the Provincial Park where we first launched. We were running out of the ice we had bought on Monday. The Rubbermaid with the two part lid seemed to really eat it up much faster that the Coleman Extreme even though both were suppose to be 5 day coolers. It might be the fact that we are in and out of the Rubbermaid all the time as that is where we keep all the daily food and drinks. We will probably buy a second Coleman and see how that works. I will have to say the Rubbermaid will take taller bottles and such and we do like the double lid.
........
We had about 9 miles to go to the ramp area and the wind was still unbelievably out of the east, so that meant probably having to tack the whole way. Right out of our anchorage was the first of the three narrows we would have to run. To make things easier as we came off anchor we also motored about 1/4 mile through the first narrows. Then we killed the outboard and ran on the main and jib. At this point the wind was light enough we could of had the genoa up, but we seem to tack close into the wind better with the jib. Maybe that is normal and we will have to read up on that.
We sailed the 1 1/2 mile west to east, the length of the Lower West Arm pretty quickly on 4-6 long tacks. We also were able to set up for one tack through the narrows at the 6 mile point on the arm where long sand bars protrude out into the lake at the narrows from the north and south shores.
Now we were in the much longer 3 mile long Upper West Arm heading almost due east. The wind started to pick up some and we decided to practice putting a first reef in the main. That took us about 4-5 minutes. We will be faster the next time. The Mac responded by running about the same speed as before, 3 1/2 knots tacking close into the wind.
........
As we drew near the east end of the Upper West Arm we considered anchoring as we were tiring and as soon as we cleared the next narrows that we were approaching we would again be exposed to the wind and waves coming out of the east until we reached the end of the next lake section also called the Upper West Arm. As we approached the narrows we sailed over to the north side of the lake where the body of land that protrudes out to form the narrows offered protection from the east winds. There were about 4 private pieces of land there with nice homes on them as this was the highway side of the lake. We weren't crazy about dropping anchor in someone's front yard, but would if we could. Well as it turned out the lake's bottom fell off to quickly to anchor there so with no other real choice we motored 1/4 mile into and past the next of the next narrows.
While we were doing that the wind dropped some, so we decided to go on and head east some more. After tacking another mile or so Ruth stayed on the tiller and I went below and made ham sandwiches. She also had a hold of what I call the "scream line". It is the control sheet for the boom and if the boat starts to heel to much she can snap it loose in lieu of screaming. With the sandwiches ready and the wind dropping we took a minute to take the reef out of the main sail.
........
Then we picked out a possible anchorage on the south side of the next narrows opposite the Provincial Park and tacked in that direction. I had a sandwich in one hand and the tiller in the other. Ruth had a sandwich in one had and the "scream line" in the other. She never used the line and it has been a while since I've heard a scream. I'm really proud of her and we are becoming a real team at this along with life in general.
We approached the anchorage just west of a large rock and channel marker now on the outboard, but with the main still up. We motored past it as we felt that if we anchored there we would maybe block the view of the channel marker that was on the piling only 20-40 feet from shore for boats moving up and down the lake during the night.
........
About 200 yards past the marker there was a very small crescent shaped cove about 100 yards across. As we neared the middle point of the cove about 100 feet from shore Ruth yelled out "9 feet" (depth) and I dropped the anchor over and let out about 70 feet of rode. After we felt the anchor was set good I worried if we could possibly swing into the back or sides of this small cove. I took our ........
........
.... stern line ashore in the dingy and pulled the Mac towards shore. It stopped about 30 feet out and looked further to me. To me looking form the shore to the boat looks further than looking from the boat to shore with both being the same. Kind of like the looking down vs. looking up that happened at the bridge the day before. I felt that this was a good place to try the bridle and trip rope as there were some nice trees just a few feet from the water line. I went back to the boat and let out about 10 more feet of rode then took the bridle and trip line back to shore. Hooking up the bridle now takes less time than tying off the shore rope would normally take. I like it as if for some reason during the night we didn't want to be tied to the shore such as a strong change in wind direction we don't have to go ashore in the dark to release it and we don't have to release the line at the boat end and abandon it for possible later retrieval.
........
With the boat anchored we later sat in the cockpit and had a light supper. The train tracks were still behind us here also just up in the trees. There are only a couple trains a day on this line and the night one's never bothered us again.
........
We could see the marina and ramp about 1 1/2 miles away from us on the far side of the lake so we had almost made our days destination and we had already anchored plenty over there, so this was a nice change.
........
About dark two sailboats ghosted by us about 100 yds. off our bow headed east. One was towing the other and then a third pulled up to them also under power. Then from the west came yet another smaller sailboat that caught the other three and they all headed east down the lake. There are a lot of sailboats here and we see 2-3 at least every day somewhere. These 4 boats seemed to ignore us even though we waved. Maybe they didn't see us, weren't crazy about MacGregors or didn't like a boat from the states in their waters or none of the above.
The whole time we were on the lake we never saw anyone anchored and staying on their boat overnight. One night by the marina one sailboat tied to a mooring and two others rafted up along side of it and they all appeared to spend the night on their boats. The 12 days we were on Priest Lake we never saw anyone else on any type boat on an anchor with people overnighting. We have a hard time understanding why so few people stay on their boats at night, but maybe what happened later in the wee hours of the next day would explain that.
At this moment though we were really getting into this and it would be hard to stop and head south in 4 or 5 days.
