There was no doubt from the first moment we drove on to the ice that it was to be a storm sail day. The snow was streaming into the pits in lovely contrails. Ice was showing through. Once past the quarter mile of bumpy ice from the pits the rest of the lake opened up to lovely plate punctuated by small drifts that built as the day went on. More black ice, bigger drifts: a fair trade off as dodging the drifts became pat of the fun, or if you had a buddy sailing close by you’d hit the drifts just to give him the splendor.

The pressure ridge 2/3’s up the west side was marked with a crossing, as was the one at the top of Hoyt. From there down is was pedal to the metal in a massive downwind flyer. The Bunting ridge, as it’s now known, was in position, but allowed a crossing at the east end, as usual.

Hard to count the number of boats on the ice today, but surely about twenty if you include the larch of Lockleys that showed up late in the day. They were the last ones in: bravo!

Some boats are still on the ice. Now that we’re all warmed up to big winds we’ll be set to tackle tomorrow’s bigger gusts. We’ll set some marks in the middle of the west side so those who want can arrange some scratch racing. Monday looks a bit calmer and much warmer. We’ll have earned it.