........--- Upper Priest Lake & Back to Priest ---
......................................--- July 16-17, 2009 ---
16 JUL 09 -- Night's Anchorage -- North End of Upper Priest
( N. --o --.---' -- W. --o --.---' )
6.7 miles sailing and no outboard miles....................
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This day started off with a real bang or lets say wind coming from the wrong direction. The morning's wind was blowing in from the west which meant that if I went ashore and untied the stern line the boat which was on about 180 feet of rode, but only about 30 feet from the shore, would swing into the shore. The wind would drive it there before I could get back on the boat and pull the boat forward to the anchor.
We started the outboard and decided to cut the shore line and return for it later. I was on the bow when Ruth cut the stern line. The wind immediately started sending the boat into shore as I tried to pull it forward on the anchor line with Ruth trying to not go ahead faster than I could bring line in. It just wasn't going to work, so I told her to put the outboard in reverse and try and counter the wind. She got the rpm's a little to high and it sucked the Zodiac towards the outboard and cut one of the front lines going to it (the only time we had had any problems with the new tow bar arrangement) and then it and the rudder came into contact with each other and made so much noise that I couldn't tell what was going on and told her to turn the outboard off. About this time I had the boat up to where the anchor was directly under the bow and got the anchor up and on the boat. The boat was now only 20-25 feet from shore and I quickly hoisted the jib and main and we were able to sail out into the lake. Needless to say I'll never anchor like that again where the boat can swing into the shore or hopefully anything else on the anchor rode. Yet saying that we did get into a very uncomfortable situation on anchor a week or so later in Canada which you will read about if you stay with us on this trip.
As we were sailing the winds went up over 15 mph and were a little much for us with all the sail up. We reefed the main down to the 2nd reef and that helped. Of course shortly after we did that the winds calmed way down. We sailed down to the very end of the lake to the north and started back when the wind finally completely died.
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We located an anchorage on a north facing shore near the river inlet to the lake at the right side of the picture above.
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In the still water we put an anchor out off the bow and ran a stern line ashore again. We had decided it wasn't wise to be using the cheap yellow poly line as a shore line and switched to the 7/16th line from one of the spare anchor rodes. We hoped to not loose this line, but felt a lot better having it holding the stern if a crosswind happened to come up during the night.
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As the sun went down the mosquitoes, who had been absent most of the trip, came out and the pop-top cover went on and we went below for a dinner of...
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.......... scramble eggs with chili and crackers in a skillet and coffee. Later in the evening I got a map out and looked for a road route to Nelson, B.C. on Kootenay Lake in Canada where we planned to go after Priest. We went to bed about 11, which was late for us.
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Just a few notes at this point. We have been really happy with the stove being between the sink and the food storage unit on the port side during meal time. I sit on that side and usually run the stove while Ruth works on things on the sink side.
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The clothes storage that was added to the enlarged V-Berth was also a .....
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............big help compared to the tubs we used on our first trip. After this trip I added more clothes storage before our next trip that even helped more and we now feel that we are good to go when it come to clothes and personal belongings storage.
While I'm at it I'll cover a couple other items that might be of interest if you want to do some multiple day cruising trips. We had relocated the head to the cabin....
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..........on the starboard side and that was working great for us, but might not be the ticket for everyone.. We use what are called Double Doodie bags, which are similar to Wag Bags, in the head. One of these would last 1-2 days depending on use which you will have to use your imagination on. This smells about the same as a porta-pottie when in use, but with the lid on there is no smell and the cleanup is way easier as these are a bag within a bag with the outer bag being no more than a large zip-lock bag. Of course you have to store these bags somewhere. We use the containers that have the snap on lids that you can buy dry detergent in and keep one in the aft berth where it is handy. They hold about 4-5 bags without pushing things which you don't want to do in this case. Once one of the storage containers is full it is placed............
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.........under the V-Berth and tied into place there like the white one in the picture above. So two of those will handle a couple weeks on the water for two people. We were out 12 days and two worked fine, but we had three with us.
In the water department we use about 1 gallon a day if it isn't real hot weather where we drink a lot. On this trip the temps were in the low 90's most days while in Idaho. We have one main 7 gallon container attached to the sink and another 7 gallon next to it. In addition we had the two 4 gallon containers shown in the picture above located under the V-Berth. We use a transfer pump between the containers and the main one. Once the storage ones are drawn down low enough with the pump to be easily lifted we will lift them out and empty them the rest of the way into the main one without the pump. This has worked great and we never had to add water while we were out on the water for 12 days in Idaho or while we were out for 12 days in Canada.
We wash all of the dishes immediately after a meal before food can stick to them and wash usually without soap as at this point there is no bacteria on your plate as you were just eating off of it a few minutes earlier. With the dish clean it is then rinsed off with fresh water and dried. It is amazing how little water you actually need to wash and do a good job. At home with the faucet running I'll use more water on one dish that I do on the boat for a whole meals worth.
17 JUL 09 -- Night's Anchorage -- By Twin Island on Priest Again( N. --o --.---' -- W. --o --.---' )
23 miles under sail and 2.5 miles with outboard.................
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Well like often happens with old people after going to bed late the night before we were wide awake and got up at 5:30 about the earliest we arose on the whole trip. After breakfast we left the Kera Jane to herself and took the dingy around the point where we had been anchored and..............
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....put ashore short of a campsite with a beach as a group of girls were leaving there in canoes. If you look close out in the lake you can see some of them headed for the other shore. The campsite here was also for backpackers who had hiked in and we spent a few minutes talking to one family before heading up a trail that..............
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.......... went north off into the dense for us forest. At one point we got off the trail and worked over through the trees to where we could look out over the lake.
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On the way we ran across some bear scat (bear poop to me) that thankfully looked older than the night before. We also ran across some...........
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.......elk tracks that looked fresher.
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The forest here and in Canada was much denser that what we are use to in the mountains in SE Utah.
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When we finally made our way to a small clearing we were rewarded to a nice view of the lake with the Kera Jane on anchor. There is something special about looking out on the water at your boat and realizing that it has gotten you where you are. We can see how people develop real bonds with their boats and we are at that stage already with the Mac.
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After the hike and back on board we saw a sea-plane land and then take off. We saw a number of these on our time on the water.
For a while the lake remained dead still but by 11 a.m. the wind started to pick up and we started tacking the 3 miles to the the outlet of the lake where the Priest River starts its journey to Priest Lake.
We had good intentions of trying to retrieve our stern line from shore where we had left it the morning before after having to cut it. We sailed over to the small cove, but found a 30's or 40's restored wooden power boat tied to the sand beach there with the guy and gal that were with it eating a picnic lunch with a small table and table cloth and the whole shebang. As was our problem the day before it is really hard to put an anchor down in the lake there due to the bottom dropping off too fast. We tried to get in, but came too close to their really nice looking boat for comfort and drew some "what the hell are you doing" stares from them and rightly so, so we gave up. I could of left Ruth by herself on the lake and taken the Zodiac in, but with the increasing wind didn't feel comfortable with that, so we abandoned the line. We didn't like leaving it there, but there wasn't much else we could figure out to do.
Before we started the trip down the river we lowered the sails and drifted around and ate lunch near the inlet to the river.
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After lunch with Ruth on the outboard and me on the bow again we headed back down the Thoroughfare which can be a little narrow at some points and......
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........... wider at other points, but always very pretty.
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There was a group of kayakers that we finally caught and they remained along side of us for that last part. They asked how fast we were going and after looking at the GPS I told them 1.8 mph. Remember the length of the river is a no-wake zone.
After motoring out of the river we raised the sails and headed south 5 1/2 miles to where we had anchored the last night on Priest on the south side of Distillery Bay and near Twin Island by the..............
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...... channel marker that marked the rocks in the area. We anchored out and tied to shore again, but in such a way that we couldn't swing to shore off of the anchor like the mistake we did two nights earlier.
It was a long day with getting up early, the hike, and the 23 miles the GPS said we did tacking into the wind and the slow but "stay at full attention" river run. I figured we did about 12 "as the crow flies" miles from the previous night's anchorage to this one.
We were tired, but were starting to feel like we could actually sail where we needed to go. The next day would challenge that thought, but this evening we were feeling pretty good and it was wine for Ruth and a beer for me with cheese, crackers and canned fruit to finish the day at 8 p.m..
