Chickawaukie Ice Boat Club

Mike Acebo sent this video he made last Sunday. For those who think they know the lake, try navigating along with Mike and see if you can figure out where you are. It’s tricky!

https://vimeo.com/58476137

Camden Maine, Megunticook from Mike Acebo

Local lakes are wet out now, waiting for the cold blast due late Thursday. We’re hoping surfaces become smooth, flat and hard for the weekend. It looks promising so far. Our sights are on Damariscotta for Saturday.

The weather prediction is for “mixed aggrivation”: a mysterious blend of snow, sleet–now called ‘ice pellets–and rain which lowers the curtain on an endless, amazing, frigid, sunny spell of ice activities. My other life has been on hold for almost two weeks: handyman jobs postponed, iceboat repairs neglected, household cleanliness–in Brenda’s words–“disgusting”.

So Lloyd and I headed to Darmiscotta to examine the base which will underlie the additions and subtractions that the thaw might bring. Coming to this lake, which we have followed closely this year, is revisiting much-loved and holy ground. Darmiscotta looked like a bad case of small-pox, with smoothed hard-candy bumps well-melted into the semi-transparent surface. We could see the season’s history in it’s patterns: here were previous snow patches, there that lovely central plate of black ice we got so excited about but missed using, over there the black and white frozen ice squares–all still visible below the poxy covering. We laboriously chopped the black ice plate, as being the thinest ice on the lake, and found it a monolithic 8″.

Lloyd was zipping ahead on John Eastman’s ice bicycle, as I labored on nordic skates over the fast, but humpy surface. We stopped near an icehouse, in the geometric center of the north broads, where each horizon is at least a mile away and sat munching grainola bars. These are the moments I always treasure. The slight high-altitude haze didn’t diminish the intensity of the daily-stronger sun. Not the slightest breath of wind. The nearby shack only emphasized the great half-dome–the wide, now-friendly, open universe which holds us in its cradle.

Lloyd lectured on the 10 foot trajectory of blood, which would shoot from a severed femoral artery. We calculated how much pressure was needed to staunch the flow: about 10 pounds. “Don’t cut that artery!”, Lloyd shouted. We were wearing hearing-diminishing helmets. Hanging out with an ex-MD, you get such great free medical advice. “I’m not planning to”, I countered with a bow of thanks…

Joy of joys, Lloyd found a flooded N-S pressure ridge in its usual place near the western shore, which gave me gloriously smooth skating more than half-way back. We said good-by to our wonderful hosts at the launch, and headed home, to catch up on dull old regular life and await developments. But we know…..it’s far from over.

jory

P.S. Holy Smokes! Root around on the Darmiscotta Lake Watershed Association’s website. What a gold mine! You might even see their webcam. http://www.dlwa.org

Chickawaukee Sunday Jan 28 was as nice ice as we have seen in sometime, but too much wind. The “Old farts” and guests had a fine time, some brisk sailing but not really enjoyable for all day the fire side bench saw heavy use. Bill Bunting insisted that I try ballasting my Super DN. I dropped a 20 Lb snake in the cockpit and, as advertized, the addition of this tiddly weight to the 100Lb boat was amazing. Dennis Glidden came up from Southern Maine with his well used “Grey Ghost DN, he and Don Stearns have had epic voyages on Sebago in past years. I asked him if he had his storm sail? “Nope, don’t have one, when the window on my full sail (criscrossed with duct tape) blows out then I will”. Al Heath, new member, sailed his ancient rickety looking iceboat ancestor of the Alcort Sailfish/Sunfish in the heavy air with and without passengers. Nothing bent and nothing broke. What holds the thing together is a mystery, it works just fine. We have a new member Zander Aurbach who thinks a replica of it would be an interesting low cost project. We await further developments. It us just a lumber yard wood A frame, wood runners with angle iron blades, aluminum tube spars, some permanently bent. Super simple. Sort of a wood Skimmer with sailfish sail/lateen? rig.
In the meantime Jory and Lloyd explored Damariscotta, wall to wall washboard surface on 8 inches of ice. The usual pressure ridge system off the the right is just healed cracks. A couple of days of warm wind and rain might fix it right up for next weekend. The outlook depends on how much snow in the mix.