When I put the boat in the day before, the boat ramp parking area was almost empty.
The reservoir was the highest I've ever seen it in the many years I've been coming here. The concrete ramp was littered with driftwood, but that was easy to clear out of the way. The water came up to only about three feet from the top of the concrete ramp! Usually it's 30 or 40 feet down the ramp before you hit water.
I was the only one on the water both days except for one or two fishing boats that I saw. Two likely reasons for this:
- The day started pretty cold - 37 degrees in the morning
- The heavy runoff from the Snake River left the reservoir pretty littered with fallen tree trunks, limbs, little sticks, etc that run down the canyon
The weather warmed to the high sixties/low seventies by afternoon and it really didn't feel that cold anyway. The debris in the water kept away the speedboats and jetskis. They are nasty to hit when you're moving fast. But under sail, they are no big deal. They can be dodged and the smaller stuff just bounces happily off the hull.
Fairly light but consistent wind, which is an anomaly for this place - usually the wind is finicky and shifts around quite a bit. With main and jib out, speed was only about 1.5 knots, even wing-on-wing. Heading downwind as I was, it seemed like a good opportunity to practice with the spinnaker - something I've only done about 4 or 5 times, each time deploying and retrieving it myself since I almost always sail alone or with a less than helpful dog. Rigged the spinnaker while the autopilot was in command. Man, I really love that thing. It is such a game changer and makes it much easier to single-hand. (I don't care what BOAT says...the bagel on the wheel looks good to me
)
With only the spinnaker out, speed quickly increased to 3 knots.
That speed under spinnaker only was a first for me and I was curious to see how it would handle as the wind picked up. I watched it slowly increase over the next 20 minutes or so to 3.5, 4, 4.5, and finally 5 knots. And so smoothly! No heeling drama since it was consistently downwind. Total time under spinnaker was about 90 minutes. With the autopilot in control, I enjoyed more snacks and sodas from the fridge than strictly necessary. That is another last-year's purchase that I've really enjoyed making use of. The foam flooring is new this year.
My one disappointment was that I hadn't brought along the fishing gear. The chartplotter was constantly taunting me with indications of fish, but I didn't need it to tell me they were there, as they were jumping all around
One of the fun things about this place is the many tethered docks that float on the water here. Most of them are big squares tucked away in the many little coves where the various creeks enter, but this time I spotted a new one that I hadn't ever seen before.
This one had an attached bench and a jetski parking ramp on it. I will have to come back to try that out next time I'm on the jetski with the kids.
All in all a beautiful Wednesday on the water all to myself.
