Paddling does looks good for Sunday. My "ice-rowing" techniques need be shelved for a year, save for for
Saturday's last adventure, related below:
Upon embarking, I was greeted at the dock by a White-Throated Sparrow -- really early to see
them.
Generally speaking, dock damage is slight this year. A McMansion neighbor will need to replace his pilings -- as he does
every year. The guy's a walking lake-barge employment machine. (And a Washington lobbyist -- so it's
Federal money, coming back to Winnipesaukee).
Anyway, mid-day
Saturday was sunny, still, shirt-sleeve, and mostly silent. I only had to "ice-row" about 50% of the new adventure (which took me in the only
other direction available at the time).
With the sun directly overhead, and the water so clear, standing up in the boat was dizzying. Underwater obstructions that looked as though the boat would hit them...couldn't be touched with a 5-foot oar.
By trailing both oars astern, a touch on a handle would produce a "nudge" one direction or the other, correcting for slight wind changes.
Course changes could be made by shifting my standing weight. (Even a cartopper is affected by wind -- there's much freeboard amidships.) This affects the relationship of the troller's off-center "drive" to "Center of- "??? Mass? Roll-center? Effort?
Not that there weren't distractions: Just ¼-mile into my "ice-rowing", a dog started barking frantically at me! Why can't dog owners train them just to bark at
strange apparitions, I ask you?
Passing that mayhem at about 4-FPF (furlongs per fortnight), and while standing upright in the
USS Cartopper, with a borrowed -- and tiny -- trolling motor, it was a delight to watch 3-D underwater features pass by in 25-feet of Winnipesaukee water. Finally stopped by un-rowable ice.
This unrowable ice has a strange appearance: Although 5-inches thick, it is topped by solid ice, and the bottom is solid ice. (Think
edge-view of corregated cardboard, but enlarged). Native-American
Inuit probably have a name for it.
At one point, a blue ghostly image appeared under the ice.
It appeared to be an edge-view of a PFD.
Without thinking about a possible occupant, I rowed past at a distance, only to see it -- by itself -- push up through the ice!
(It was a dark blue fender being used to mark a mooring.
Whew!)
Disappointed at not having seen a single fish, and noting a wind change, I "ice-rowed" home through the path I had made (pictures to follow).
While standing on the dock, a football-field sized ice floe
struck the dock, causing it to shudder. The ice is so fragile, though, the floe broke in half. (My bubblers were turned off at Easter). At the same time, a very large bass swam by -- in Predator mode -- at Predator speed. Six pounds?
As the black ice broke up around obstructions, it made the sound of BBs very s-l-o-w-l-y poured into a glass vase.
Saturday afternoon, the wind kicked up from the ~East, opening up a huge area out front. It's now half-open water. I'm switching to outboard power to check out dock damages for about two square miles of lakefronts -- Sunday. IF the wind picks up, and comes from two opposite directions, the ice could be gone in two days. (BIG "IF", though).
WHERE'S
YOUR BOAT?
ApS
