Here’s the thing about Kate. She’s always up for an adventure, and she brings a bright cheery attitude even on a night like this with an into-the-wind sail for 7 miles up the lake. That’s 7 as the crow flies, not as the boat sails. On a shallow lake like Utah lake, winds in the mid 20s can make for a spirited ride into 3 and 4 foot steep waves, and lots of tacking. I honestly lost track of how many miles we sailed, I’m guessing 15-17 as we tacked our way wildly back and forth across the lake from the state park marina all the way up to Saratoga Springs. Waves frequently crashed over the bow and soaked us in the cockpit as we raced the setting sun on one last 6 mile mad dash across the lake and into the marina.
We berthed the Unsinkable 2 in a slip close to shore, and everyone went below to change out of their wet gear. The wind quieted down comfortably now that we were behind the breakwater in a marina snuggled up under the wind shadow of the mountain Overlooking Saratoga Springs.
It was a wonderful night of friends stopping by and swapping sailing tales of the exhilarating voyage earlier that evening. We played games and ordered pizza from Tenney’s Pizza, a local pizza joint that has always been great about delivering down to the docks.
Finally everything quieted down enough, we made beds and went to sleep for the night. Certainly we all hoped to sleep in until around 10am, but it’s Sailstice. These are the longest sailing days of our entire trip around the sun. So when those golden rays come peaking over the tops of the mountain at 5:58 in the morning, we’ll probably be itching to sail. Tonight though, we’ll sleep well.
As soon as the sun smiled warmly through the windows, sleep quickly faded. We got up and put all the bedding away, then settled down for a delicious breakfast of… pizza! (Bet you didn’t see that coming.)
The day’s plan was to sail all the way down to the south end of the lake and round Bird Island, before heading back to our respective home marinas. But someone had some rigging trouble on their mast, so first it was all hands on deck to figure out who was going up the mast. Some of the ODay experts in the group had a better solution. The ODay masts are tabernacled, so it could be easily dropped for repairs. Half an hour later, everyone was ready to head out.
To make the sail south more interesting, each boat was given bingo cards to use underway. They had pictures of various birds, activities like knot tying, and and other puzzles to solve. We backed out of the slip and into the fairway with a light northwesterly breeze, perfect for a 10 mile run to the south end of the lake.
Until the wind went weird. First it trickled off to almost nothing. I thought it might be the wind shadow along the west coast of the lake so we sailed out a mile or two but didn’t find anything. Then it came from the east, so we adjusted sails and went about a half mile. Then it stopped. Then it came from the west which was worth about a quarter mile. Then from… well you get the idea. Very light winds from all points of the compass. We were ahead of the pack by a mile or two, so we just kept inching along toward the island.
Or at least, where we thought bird island should be. A storm system was starting to brew over the mountains to the east, and we were all keeping a nervous eye to see if it was coming our way. And the other eye was busy too, scanning for Bird Island. We really wanted to round the island before heading back. The radio broke the silence, “Unsinkable 2, do you see the island?”
Bird Island was no where in sight. We were within a mile of it, but it was no long there. Now, this may seem alarming. Islands don’t often disappear. But in the case of Bird Island, it can. Probably a better name would have been Atlantis Island, because in high water years it can actually completely disappear beneath the surface of the lake!
“Negative. The island is not where it should be. We’re turning back.”
The storm was now drifting out onto the lake, giving occasional bursts of refreshing wind as we altered course for the Utah Lake State Park Marina.
