It was our goal to attempt to sail on January 1st, and this year we did achieve the objective. It was a sunny day with air temperature of 26F. Ice had already started to accumulate within the marina. But because Prairie Gold is located on the outside we had no worries. After carefully taking off the docklines – no dropping of the lines in the water because the water temp was 32F and they would be chilly to tie up – we set sail for a 2.5 hour, 11nm sail around Spectacle Island and back. We didn’t need to worry about other boats hitting us, an advantage of sailing this time of year. However, there were some crazy kayakers. Hold on a minute, they were probably saying “there were some crazy sailors”.
It was a great sail that was followed by whiskey in hot coffee to warm up the core temperature.
The next day after a winter storm hit dumping about 15 inches of snow with temperatures dipping to 0 F. Suffice it to say we stayed indoors.
Today, January 4th, I went down to see how much snow was on Prairie Gold. The inside of the marina was covered in thick ice that extended to the inside of E dock. Fortunately, as mentioned above, we are on the outside and there was no ice there. Prairie Gold did have some ice and snow on deck of course, although inside she was quite cozy – well with three layers of clothes, thermals etc.
Some condensation had even formed an icicle stalactite. Time to head home for some coffee.
