Chicky ice looks about a grade 6 and sails at 7+ over a mixture of black, grey, sometimes slightly wrinkled but surprisingly smooth sailing ice. There are a few narrow drain holes associated with old cracks about 1/3 down the lake from Lloyd’s beach. At that beach there is a loose mine field of drain holes from eaten out fishing holes drilled Saturday Jan 17th, before the rain. All of the above have 1 inch of ice and should be healed by Wednesday. In the meantime the thin crack based ones were marked with pine branches and the ones at Lloyd’s beach with cones.
We had 3/4 of the Maine Cheapskate fleet on the ice, Bob McEwan, Fred Wardwell, and myself. This was fred’s maiden voyage in his CS. Despite sometimes light and fluky air he sailed a couple of hours and was all smiles.
I did not sail any where near the public beach which was heavily fished Saturday, this should be OK by Wed. Launch from Lloyd’s is welcome, especially if cars are removed in AM before lawn softens in sun.
Photo is of your reporter placing pine markers in drain holes taken by Brian Hitchcock, probably from turn off on Rte 17. Thank you Brian.