From my January trip (for which I cleverly took a vacation day, creating a 3-day weekend without the 3-day weekend "Greyhound Gets Rabies, Bites" experience). We had freakishly lovely weather & we were not the only boaters out there.
By the time I returned in February, things were back to normal. TQ told me not to bother bringing the drysuit, the river was a bit on the chunky side for paddling. We did take a walk in the same park where we launched, and it looked pretty clear there - but then we drove along the river to another park where there's a little cascade that we thought would make for a nice snow hike with the dogs (it did), and I swear we only drove about a quarter of a mile along a bend in the river, and around that bend, the river was bank to bank ice floes.
8 comments:
I'd say "that dear needs an ointment" but we have too many deer.
Meanwhile it's still drysuit conditions if you fall in!
Yes, it was. Not that anybody else out there was wearing 'em, but we were.
Speaking of drysuits, my friend Chris is making noises about sailing this weekend. He's a very very good Sunfish sailor. I'm a so-so novice Sunfish sailor. On the one hand, it's looking so mellow, I'm tempted. On the other hand, that water is still really really cold & if anything goes wrong, it could go really, really wrong. Would probably be smarter to go paddling but man - 49 degrees, sunny, wind 5-10 knots - so tempting.
Thanks Bonnie!
Surely there are safe ways to go sailing sunfish...I'm guessing (besides the drysuit) that you are part of a group of boats out there and that some of them have excellent skippers etc.
Well, at this point it's just Chris, but as I said, he's very good. He's the one who's been joining the winter paddling crew in a Sunfish. As long as he understands that my ability to watch anybody's back but my own is going to be totally restricted if I swap my kayak for a dinghy, and that I may in fact need babysitting if anything goes wrong, I think we can work things out.
I don't think any of the other sailors have drysuits. We went a lot further into fall last year than they'd ever done before, but at this point I'd say Chris is our only real frostbite sailor.
That old wooden boat looks like it is going to roll down on Philo.
Not since the 70 ies, a Winter like this!!! Snow on the ground since two weeks before Thanksgiving. Still three feet deep in my back yard. Still ice on the river. 22 degrees this AM. This is getting really old!!!
Dennis G
I really like the quiet, poetic quality of your pictures. You make kayaking seem like something sublime.
-Ian
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