Chickawaukie Ice Boat Club

Yesterday’s vast sheet of new ice is now piling up on the rocks. It was two inches thick, as you can see in the picture. A lot different from this morning’s shot!

The sheet along shore is thicker and we spent the day short tacking and gybing up and down the beach on clear black ice the likes of which we’ve not seen this year.

This small pack might blow out as well in the strong westerlies predicted for tomorrow. But meanwhile Brian Lamb, Lee Spiller, Buchholz and Squibb got a nice fix. No ideas what or when could be next, unless you can get over to Plattsburg for the North Americans. I suppose they’ll leave the ice in good condition!

There’s three inches right up to the edge. Jory checked!

We sailed with the bottom of this shallow bay in view most of the time. Rocks would loom up and then vanish, submerged moorings and even a few fish would zoom by underfoot. It was mesmerizing, and a few of us nearly wandered onto the thin sheet while flying over the bottom. The illusion of flying was enhanced by the absolutely silent running of the blades.

Sebago is NOT ready for boats. The photo in the previous post was not meant to be published. Reports this morning indicate that the center is beginning to blow out in the strong SW winds. Please stand by for further scouting reports.

people go on pilgrimages all the time…they go to the shrine of Our Lady of Guadaloupe and gleefully throw away their crutches….they hike the Saint Iago de Compostella trail in northern Spain, perhaps on their knees, and are purified and cleansed…

So, the least we can do is drive 99.7 miles to this clear plate of ice, studded with white bubbles, clear to the bottom, clear to the horizon.

(Photo: Lee Spiller)

and what will we do on this pilgrimage? how–on this thin, perhaps impractical, ice– express our gratitude, our wonder?

Recently, our new Pope chose to wash local prisoners’ feet rather than those of carefully chosen Cardinals on a feast day. A tattooed prisoner asked him why. ” Acts of the heart need no explanation”, he said.

Sebago has only frozen around the edges, 100 yards this AM reported by our spy Phil Lowe who lives in Sebago and looks across to Fry Island. High winds forecast for Friday through Sunday, SW at 30-40 MPH will likely blow out what ice has formed, again. Cold will continue so there is hope, but not for this weekend. Status of Twin Lakes not known.

The temperatures are frigid…..1.2 degrees this morning….there is no hope of wetting out our snow-covered local lakes…..in these times, our only hope is the freezing of larger lakes which were open water during the recent snowfalls….Sebago, that mysterious Indian maiden, cuddled in her own micro-climate, is a prime suspect…

I wish I lived on Sebago’s edge, at Nathan’s Beach, looking East into this morning’s bright sunrise.

I would walk….with my dog…i love fantasy!… down to the edge and compare the miracle I saw yesterday: smooth, thin, unblemished ice with darker patches of open water, with what i saw this morning. Then, I would swing my axe and see that the zero degree night had thickened the ice to 2.5 inches and that those open water patches had disappeared. My dog would prance and skitter awkwardly on the crystal margin, waiting for the go-ahead of my thrown stick.

Then, back at the ranch, I would look into the crystal ball of weather, and see another cold night ahead, and a day of moderate wind coming on Saturday…..and that love-fear relationship with new, thin ice would return…..could we be safe there tomorrow?…..could we avoid “thin ice ecstasy”?…..hmmmm

And, tomorrow, if i saw a mighty splash ahead, sailing at speed 200 yards behind Bill’s iceboat, as he blasted into too-thin ice…and i spun into the wind and dismounted on creaky, marginal ice….and i called out to him to claw, ice-breaking, in my direction….and as i watched him use up his marginal energy….would i–regretting the throw rope i never bought–claw, spread-eagled his way, pulled by friendship, willing to risk an older life to save a younger? would some righteous tape: some i-told-you-so, you bastard, after all these years, still no warm, wet-proof clothing; be running through my mind, complicating the need for clarity?

and how would this morning’s clearer dilemma fare, so far from shore… in the cold, in the wind, in the adrenalin of a real-life tomorrow?