Thursday, June 15, 2023

First Overnighter

First overnighter is in the books. 

Forecast for Monday into Tuesday morning was good. Good breeze for the evening, clear skies through the night and only slight chance of rain in the morning - so I took it. I had started planning a couple weeks ago but just couldn't get out, but I knew what I had to do to pull off a short trip. I had already chosen an anchor and rode from my "stock" of anchors. I wasn't planning big eats. Grabbed several Powerades, a few protein bars and some trail mix. Oh, yea - I also bought a collapsible porta-pot and gel. Got to be prepared you know. I bought a tent last fall and already had a Thermarest pad and sleeping bag. Temps were due to drop down into the upper 50's overnight.
 
Got a little bit of a late start so altered my plans on a destination. Rigging and launch went well. Breeze was lighter than I expected but it picked up after a bit. Had a nice, short sail to a cove just two miles up the lake. 


Somebody has money!


Here's the sun setting as I was at the entrance to the cove where I was going to anchor.


It looked to be shallow, so I raised my rudder and daggerboard to row the last half mile into the long narrow cove.

I sent a screen shot of my location to Robin.


It was about 8:00 by the time I anchored. That only gave me an hour or so of daylight left to get setup for the evening. I quickly ate a bar and went to setting up. 


I emptied my lockers of the things I would need and raised the floor sections to create the sleeping platform. 


As I was in the process of setting up the tent, one of the two tent poles went overboard!!!!! Oh, no! Since there was no rain in the overnight forecast, I didn't fret too much. 

As the sun set, I settled into a reading mode. My daggerboard was lying on the floor in front of the thwart. I looked and figured that it would make a good sitting position if I laid my sleeping pad over it. It turned out to be quite comfortable. I used the seat as a backrest and stretched my feet out toward the forward bulkhead. One of my church members had given me a book written by an atheist (formerly so anyway) doctor about near death/out of the body experiences. Quite interesting! I read until 11:00.

The dew was falling quite heavily. I decided that I would throw the tent over my sleeping bag like a blanket. Worked great. Kept me fairly warm and dry. I didn't fall asleep for quite some time, but I did get some rest.

I got up to a dew-drenched, chilly, misty morning. Love those misty mornings!







I ate some trail mix and pitched my stuff forward of the main thwart to one side. I didn't bother to repack anything into the lockers. 


There was very little breeze which was my expectation, so I rowed back to the ramp - maybe a 2 mile row. 

Here's the view out of the cove back towards the dam. The sun is coming up behind me. 


Here's a shot of the looking back at the cove as I rowed out with my mizzen shielding the sun.


Here's a sunken boat I passed in the cove.


Made the distance in a little under an hour. I didn't row hard, but like I said earlier, it takes a little "umpf" to row the CIY16. It's three times the size of my previous dinghy. I tried to take long strokes using my back as much as possible to save my arms. It does give the hands quite a workout though!

Here's the ramp as I aproached. The mist has all burned off. Clear skies. 


At takeout, about 6 guys came over and admired my boat for quite some times. A wooden, lapstrake, lug yawl is not a common sight around these parts.

I was home mid-morning and finished the day with my lovely wife. Even took a ride in her convertible in the afternoon up to Lookout Mountain.

I'll be eager to do it all over again!