Thinking about the eastern seaboard and hoping Irene's bite isn't as bad as the hype. Meanwhile, we took advantage of the north/northwest wind that Irene gave the Lake Norman area today. Sailed with Alan, Rob, and Dmitri. Not abnormally gusty for the lake, but was quite up and down early, then really started to fill in as the wind turned more northwest. Rigged for the gusts and getting upwind...was on 6.4 sail and 113 lt board....was the perfect set up early on....and then we did some exploring. We worked ourselves way upwind to see what was beyond some islands way out in the distance...and found an even longer fetch to the northwest that gave us stronger and more consistent wind...and bigger swell/chop. At that point, I wish I was on smaller gear but had a blast anyway. We played around in that area for a while in 25mph+ wind, then returned to the launch area where it had filled in nicely. Great day on the lake. Hope everyone stayed safe out there if you're near the coast.
This is the south end of Lake Norman. The yellow icon on the right is where we started the sesh when the wind was more out of the north. The blue icon on the left is where we found the much longer fetch to northwest and had the better conditions. The area between those two islands is marked with shoal markers, very rocky and shallow so we had to walk across it with our gear.
Looking to those islands in the distance and wondering if it was better over there
Rob not Robert
Rob portaging his gear across the shoals to get to the good stuff
Rob
Rob
Rob
Dmitri
Dmitri
I told Dmitri it was better beyond the island and off he went. Alan was already over there. You can barely see him on the water just over Dmitri's sail.
2 comments:
Yeah, that place goes off. Just don't get caught with your pants down, that is, stuck when the wind dies. It's a long haul back. Just ask Chuck, who several years ago knocked on my door about 9:00 PM in the winter when it was about 45 degrees. Best direction was today...North. If it goes much more Westerly it's not worth it. My next project will be a pontoon boat that I can leave on the shore and that we can drag out to the water line to get out.
Alan
The 6th photo down of Rob shows a smooth swell. Photos never do swells justice, do they. There were some really long and nice swells that day. Reminiscent of The Gorge for me.
~Alan
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