A Nice Little Cruise. Labour Day weekend 2006.

(I have not quite finished this page yet.....)

I do a lot of image making and my blog stuff is basically just a way to store and show some of my images. The story is mainly to make sense of the images I guess. I do this stuff primarily for friends and relatives, but it may be of some interest to other sailing folk or someone that might have the same or similar boat.

Another note. The boat came to us named Puff. Early on we decided to keep that name until we had spent enough time with the boat. We are hoping that a suitable name shows itself in time. (A month after this story we have finally decided to keep the original name Puff). Images and story of Puff and the day we brought her home with us.

Part of the plan in acquiring our new boat was over nighting at anchor. Our other boat (Annie M) was much too small inside for such activities. When I cruised solo or spent the night away with Annie, I pretty much always camped ashore. Daphne is not keen on the camping thing. I has something to do with bears I think.
Our new (1983) Montgomery 17 is not all that much longer of a boat, but it is substantially bigger than Annie. Annie weighs in at about 600 lbs, the M17 is 1600. It is very wide in the beam and much deeper. We have now spent four nights on the boat and the size is perfect for us. I am sure there are folks that would not consider sleeping aboard or spending three days together on a sailboat this size, but it is pretty well exactly what we felt would be a perfect set of compromises for us. I personally wanted a boat just big enough for the two of us so that when I solo cruised it would be even more luxurious for me and the extra gear I tend to carry.
Another aspect of the plan was to get a boat that was still small enough to be convenient and yet seaworthy and able enough for some extended adventure. The M17 is a perfect fit. I have now sailed (and motored) the boat nearly 200 miles and spent many nights aboard. She has been sailed in some fairly severe conditions and I can recommend this particular ( Lyle Hess ) design without reservation.

The September long weekend around our parts is a great weekend to spend on one of our big interior lakes. The touristas seem to get mighty thinned down by then and the big motor boats start to become a distant unpleasant memory. Not that I dislike the motor boats, or even the folks that ‘pilot’ them….it is their wake that seems ever present and annoying at times. The only time the moboat wake is diminished is when it becomes windy enough for it to dissipate. Mid summer highs are not known for big wind, so the wake is common and often huge and confused at times. There are some mondo sized power boats on this big lake.

Image of our sailing grounds courtesy of Google Earth. The lake is about 75 miles long and 2 miles wide at the widest point.
We live in Kelowna where it is both the widest and narrowest points of the lake.

The weekend forecast was looking very nice and would be a perfect chance to spend three days and a couple of nights aboard. The high was solid so I was not expecting much in the way of wind. In other words, any wind we were to get would be a pleasant surprise.
We had decided to travel North. Okanogan Lake is about 75 miles long running, in a crooked sort of manner, North and South. At about the half way point is Kelowna where we live. Crossing from Kelowna to Westbank is the largest floating bridge in Canada. Planted within that span is a liftable section made so that larger boats and sail boats could go through this inconvenient obstruction. You have to call in advance for a lift ...at certain times of the day. Thankfully the bridge will be raised, and all that important traffic stopped.... even for a wee sailboat...
upon a simple request.
Our boat is kept on the south side of the bridge so for day sailing and over nighters we generally stick to the south side of the lake. There are lots of great places to go and plenty of lake to explore, so we don't bother the bridge man too often. On this occasion though we thought it would be fun to explore the north end. I had only sailed a few miles north of Kelowna since moving here during the winter.
There were quite a bunch of sailboats all crossing under the bridge at the same lift time as us. One of the boats on the south side was a nice Catalina Capri 22, I discovered the owner/skipper of that boat was a chap I had spoken to during the cruise Zach and I did on this lake last year. We had a nice chat as we both had new boats. I believe he had a San Juan 21 last year. The Capri, by his telling, is much faster, he is racing quite a lot and is very pleased with the boat.
Once the bridge was up and we hurried under the span, I was a little shocked to be within spitting distance of a long time admired design of mine, a Flicka. I had never seen one in 3D before this brief moment. Quite a lot of boat there for 20 feet or so.

What a beauty she is. And on our own lake no less. Seemed odd....somehow...that he was towing one of those personal watercraft Seadoo units behind. Perhaps he had captured it and was taking it out to a deeper part of the lake for scuttling......

As for wind at this point in the day, there wasn't any. So the newly tuned four stroke vibrated us up the lake at a blazing 4 knots. At some point we stopped for a swim. Very hot day with full sun. We do a lot of swimming while sailing in the summers.

As luck would have it lunch time rolled around just as we were about to motor past the Okanogan Lake resort. Maybe we should stop in and see if they had something a bit better than the cheese and crackers we had planned. They had a decent spot to tie up to and we wandered down the wharf to an interesting beach front bar set up below the resort. Sand floors and a tent roof. Potted palms. And a wide menu. Hamburgers beer and chips (crisps). Oddly enough, they had veggie burgers as well. Lucky vegetarians are us. Lots to watch. It was a fun stop.

A great looking place. We have been there before, but via the usual road and car type method.
We went out there for Daphnes last birthday.

The Kitchen.

They rent all kinds of boats here. Even for Labour Day weekend it was quite busy.

We spotted this monstrosity going up the lake while having lunch. It was two barges rafted together with two motor boats in tow.
My first thought it was a bunch of kids that had a gen set and enough equipment to power up a rock band. Plan was to not anchor near them.
Turns out I was not far off. A fellow from work was at a huge party at another resort type of place a bit further up the lake. This barge unit had a DJ and all the related sound gear plus a fire works show.

Somebody getting married lake side....

Some hot and dusty riders and their horses coming down for a drink and a splash.

We motored on most of the afternoon periodically dipping the bucket to soak ourselves down. Love the draining cockpit. There are always nice things to see and stuff going on.

This is a new lake to explore for us. It was fun. This is some new-ish resort or gated community thing. All the houses were the same or very close to the same. I was thinking maybe they could have left two or three trees....?

Or maybe not. Only a few minutes past this place Daphne's eagle eyes spotted a small forest fire and two water bombers dropping retardant on it. There was a third smaller 'spotter' plane as well. We have seem many fires and this routine a number of times. It is always fun to watch the planes though. I love watching airplanes for some reason. Best time was many years ago actually being on a lake when an old school amphibious aircraft was scooping up water from the lake at 100 knots.

These were taken at full telephoto from a moving boat. With our bare eyes you could just make out the planes. We anchored not too far from this point that night. The next day the fire was out. Nice.

I just love these humble weekend cottages.

OK, this one really is humble. Built into the hillside it looked like to me.

This one kills me. Wow.

See,who says motor boaters aren't friendly? These guys were even going slow.

This young lady was having a swim while her handmaiden was holding the umbrella for her return.....

This was one of my favorite properties. It had a wonderful boat house with a small hand made double ender hanging from the rafters.

Our first night destination. Ellison Park. There are about four perfect little bays all with well maintained (free) mooring buoys. This bay was all full but for one or two spots. Lucky for us. This beautiful Beneteau had what looked like a birthday party going on. Plenty of action to watch. We went swimming right away to cool off. Daphne likes to swim in the conventional sense. I snorkel. My fins mask and snorkel live on the boat. We explored the bay. Ended up on a beach and I snorkelled with a dog named Sam for while. It was a hoot. He was a young-ish golden retriever I think. He was having fun with me....but a little scared of me as well. I get the same reaction from people more often than not.

Everyone had lined up for the big photo....so I took one as well. These people were having a wonderful day.

North end of the bay....

.....and the south end. Perfect shelter from the two main prevailing winds.

A great rock wall right in our neighborhood. What was interesting about these rocks that had calved off the wall was that the ones above high water were sharp and jagged. The ones at and below high water were smoothed off and soft. I wonder how long it takes a rock like that to get rounded by water action?

Although that small fire we saw earlier went out, there had been (and still is two weeks later) a super huge fire burning just below the border in WA state. The smoke generated was immense. We had clear sky all day until this point in the evening. Because there was little wind, the smoke had traveled a long way to be with us. By the next morning it was solid smoke cover and did not go away for a week. This past weekend I flew from here to Victoria at the coast. The smoke was up to 20,000 feet or so and solid all the way as far as I could see. It stopped around Hope towards the coast.

There was a group of kids swimming off the rocks all that evening and the next day. They looked to be having a grand time.

I borrowed a little rubber raft from my son and took it along with us just so I could get a ducks eye view of the boat. Mr. Hess draws a fine looking boat me thinks. I think this hull would look especially fine in dark green.

Apart from the sloppy furl job....

Since these images were taken I have removed the headsail furling gear.

The evening Vibe.

Great colours from both cloud and smoke.

As you can see,we were having a very peaceful evening reading, talking and munching........

more