Sunday, September 9, 2012

Even Brown water is a good thing

A glance at the depth gage showed 12 feet under the keel. Twelve feet! Yikes! With that much water under her Kintala could sink nearly to the cabin top. Surly this is some high risk sailing, now where did I stash that life vest?

Though I was expecting the lake to go down from last weekend, the Corps had the water more than 2 feet above normal pool ... water, water everywhere. So of course we went sailing. Ah, but first we did work; Deb on the dodger and me on the exterior teak. Interior work is waiting for a special delivery of some old style wood. Something about it being cut across the gain maybe, not sure. But it sounds good. Anyway, by mid Saturday afternoon all tools had been properly stashed away and Kintala found her way out to the lake with never less than a foot showing between her and the bottom. (I know I've had more than 1000 feet under me before, and I generally have about 35,000 feet between my bottom and Mother Earth while out flogging the jet. But I've been looking a "0" on the depth gage for so long it started to seem normal.)

In addition to water we had perfect wind for a one tack romp to the dam at better than 6 knots on a reefed main and part of a head sail. Now I remember why I like this boat. We were going to spend the night in Coles Creek but bow into 20 knots worth of west wind and choppy waves defeated two or three attempts at getting the anchor to set. Deb powered us across the lake to a place called Cove 4 while I recovered from hauling the anchor up and down several times. Cove 4 is on the west side of the lake and we were well protected. The anchor set first try, we had a near perfect night on the hook, another perfect sail back to the pier come morning where ... we went back to work. Deb on the dodger and me on the teak.

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