In spite of the fact that some places in the world are becoming less great every day, this lake was fabulous today even in the light air. Full sunshine, temps in the high twenties and williwaws and zephyrs aplenty. We worked our way puff by puff as far from the pits as we dared, and then tiptoed back. Jory kept going, his heart set on that plate of very smooth ice at the north end, right where the rest of us were convinced was in a deep lee. He called a while later to say the wind up there was fabulous and that we should all try to get up there. Since the theme of the day was falling for sucker puffs, off we went.

It wasn’t long before we saw him pushing back down. Still convinced that the magic wind was still on, he agreed to go back, get his car, and tow all six of us to the top end of the lake. While we were getting the boats lined up and waiting for him a small puff erupted and a few of us were able to get the couple of miles to the north end. Jory came along anyway and pulled a few boats the rest of the way.

The wind wasn’t so great anymore, but the promised southerly migrated in and filled. Now we could sail, driving hard to windward down the backside of Hoyt Island. Oh to pull the sheet, clip it in and marvel at the pure joy of an iceboat doing its thing. Magnificent.

The planned orienteering event didn’t happen for lack of wind, but we have the checkpoints ready and a mapmaker standing by for the next opportunity. Dave Fortier joined us, and Paul came all the way from NYC. We’re looking at snow on and off for a week now, so we’ll be scouring all of New England now to make iceboating happen again.