.................--- Sailed a Little and Ran Aground ---
......................................--- Friday July 24, 2009 ---
Night's Anchorage: Between Kokanee Park Ramp and Kokanee Park Marina & Store.
( N. 49o 36.500' -- W. 117.o 06.853' )
Sailed about 4-5 miles -- motored about 1/2 miles
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We awoke in the morning to clear skies and a great looking day.
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The previous night's anchorage was close to shore where the right arrow is and the left arrow points to the house and cottage where our friend came from the night before.
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These homes were located a short ways to the east of us in the other direction from our anchorage.
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We spent a good part of the day sailing around this area of the lake. The west arm of Kootenay consists of a number of open waters that are close to 1 mile across and 1 to 3 miles long connected by narrows that can be anywhere from a few hundred yards wide to 1/4 mile wide and are usually about 1/4 mile in length (Goggle Nelson, B.C. for a map and aerial view of the area). The west arm is like a number of individual lakes connected by narrows. Also there are some pretty extensive shallow shelves in this arm of the lake as we were to find out on this day. The west arm runs for about 20 miles or so in mostly a east/west direction and intersects the main part of Kootenay Lake about mid point in its north/south orientation of around 100 miles long. In the picture above the main part of Kootenay is out of sight at the base of the mountains in the background about 8 miles or so from this location.
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Here is a picture where I zoomed in more (the last picture was more wide angle) at the mountains that are on the far side of the main part of Kootenay lake in the picture's background. Also if you look close you can see the cable car ferry that is to the right in the picture and a couple miles away. More about it later.
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Now looking west at the kilo (2/3's of a mile) long beach at the Provincial Park where we put in. Up the valley and around the curve behind the mountain to the left in the picture is Nelson which is at the west end of this arm of the lake about 12-14 miles away. The area off the beach is extremely shallow for about 1/8 to 1/4 mile out into the lake as we and other boaters found out. We were sailing in the channel to the left of the park and tacked over towards the shore and in one boat length went from around 40-50 feet of water to less than 6 feet and kicked the centerboard and rudder up. After that we watched the depth finder more closely until we had sailed over an area more than once. We also should of known something us up when..........................
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...................we saw people standing in water that didn't even come up to their knees a few hundred yards off the shore.
Later in the day we sailed back towards the ramp where we had put in the previous day and ........
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...... anchored between the ramp and ......
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.........the nearby Kokanee Park Marina and Store. We were in about 9-10 feet of water and to get in that shallow water we were about 200 feet from the ramp and about 200 feet from the marina and it took us two passes to kind of split the distance between them. Swinging on anchor at times we would be closer to one or the other. We worried a little about interfering with the traffic in and out of the marina on that side and/or the fuel dock, but they didn't seem to care and no one else did. On our stay in Canada everyone was really great to us and they seem to be more laid back than in the states. We really enjoyed it there.
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We took the dingy over to the marina and tied to the side of the fuel dock and walked up to the store that was by the highway and is always busy with drive-in customers and a few from the marina. We had some "real" ice cream, not the soft junk you get so many places now and it wouldn't be the last time we enjoyed their great cones.
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After the ice cream it was back down to the marina where we walked the docks some. There weren't many sailboats on Priest Lake and this was the first time in our sailing career we could actually walk amongst other sailboats. It was pretty neat for us and ................
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.... this one was one of our favorites. We returned to........
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.................... the Kera Jane and later had................
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....................... more rain, lightning and thunder, but this time we didn't run for shore as it was more distant than the night before.
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We found that we could slide the bimini forward on its tracks and then pull the new companionway cover on the pop-top cover up to it and clip it there and move between the cockpit and cabin and stay dry. This wouldn't of worked though if there had been a hard driving rain.
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We had rain showers off and on, but every so often the sun would come out and highlight the nearby mountains in some brilliant end of day light. Night finally set in and we turned in for another good night's sleep.
.......................--- Raised the Bunks on the Trailer ---
...........................................--- Friday July 25, 2009 ---
Night's Anchorage: Between Kokanee Park Ramp and Kokanee Park Marina & Store.
( N. 49o 36.500' -- W. 117.o 06.853' )
Sailed about 0 miles -- motored about 0 mile
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We decided that we needed a rest day and also needed to work on the trailer bunks, so stayed on anchor and.............
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............took the inflatable over to the launch ramp and dock a short ways behind the boat.
Then it was a short walk up to the Suburban and trailer in the parking area. We had a ticket on our windshield for leaving the vehicle there overnight and drove up to the main gate where the helpful girl there wrote us out a parking pass to put in our windshield.
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Driving up I was afraid that the bottom of the boat might be hitting the axle with it being overloaded and only about 1 inch from it. So as to stop the worrying on my part we stopped in Sandpoint, ID after leaving Priest lake and bought some lumber at a lumber yard there along with some carpet at a Walmart. We then took those items and proceeded to raise the height of the bunks.
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The bottom middle arrow points to the original bunk. 2 1 X 6's were screwed to the tops of those (top arrow) and then the 1 X 2's were screwed to the bottom 1 X 6 to position the risers. The 1 X 2's were screwed to the first 1 X 6 and then the second 1 X 6 added to the top to raise the boat 1 1/2 inches.
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Then the carpet was cut and added to the tops and nailed on with nails with washers or them. Of course this is a temporary fix for the rest of the summer and fall until a second axle can be added during the winter. At the same time the bunks will be rebuilt with most likely pressure treated wood. This fix took an hour or so and the boat rode fine on the way home and on subsequent trips.
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After fixing the trailer we drove east down this arm of the lake towards the main part of the lake, but the wind really came up and we thought it best to get back to the boar to make sure it was ok.
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It then rained cats and dogs off and on with periods of ....
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....beautiful clouds floating by. More rain and lighting during the night, but we were fine.
