It’s been a messy start in Ste. Aurelie, just across the border in Quebec. There are two lacs there: Abenakis and Joli. Joli is smaller, shallower and colder. Abenakis is larger and tends to freeze later. We’ve had some wonderful early sailing there in recent years. But they have had everything in the book weatherwise this season and at last reports the lacs were frozen but the surfaces a mess.

But Denis had a hunch. Here’s his report from today:

Hi Guys,Yesterday, we had a little bit of rain in the afternoon. And at about 8;00 yesterday night, I thought: what if the mess described by Frank in Ste.Aurelie has improved during the week, with the mild temps that we had all week? So I called him and asked if he would come with me in the morning to see it. I had the feeling that I was missing something…

So we headed there early this morning, even if Frank was 90% sure that it would still be a mess. But I wanted to check the little 10% left…

Surface was a 5-6 grade, but on 5-6 inches of solid ice, tight to the shore. No hazards, no open water. Solid as a rock. We did not bring the boats, so we came back in town and packed the boats and headed back to Lake Abenakis. We sailed all afternoon with the perfect wind for our DN rigs. Very nice day for our first sail of the year. I am so sorry that I did not know about this ice before this morning in order to let you know before….

And even more sorry that the forecast has changed again for Jackman with this snow coming tomorrow….

His reference to Jackman is Wood Pond, which we’ve been watching for the past week. The ice looks very nice on the web cam. The snow forecast for tomorrow had been canceled yesterday and we’d hoped to sail Monday. Alas, the snow is back. Lots of it. Denis was going to scout it tomorrow and we’d have posted the plans here.