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.................--- Bay north of Skunk Cliffs --- .................................................--- to --- ...........--- Bay north of Holms Crossing ---

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............ .........(Fri -- Jun 17th) .............Anchorage --- N 41º 10.462´ .............................W 109º 34.109´ Trip Mileage = 10.1 NM ---- Day's Mileage = 5.3 NM .........Sailed = 4.6 NM.---- .Motored = .70 NM

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Up at 8 or so after a long night of good sleep and finally feeling much better with the fixing, packing, driving and launching behind us. Dottie made some coffee and we took it and cereal to the cockpit for a relaxed breakfast.

Where we watched first one deer and ....

.... then a couple more ford the shallow water running across the entrance to the arm of the lake. After seeing how shallow the water was I was glad that we hadn't tried getting past it into the arm of the lake.

Also nearby were two White Pelicans most likely in some form of mating ritual and .....

..... lots of Canadian geese and ducks were in the water nearby. This area had the largest concentration of water fowl we saw on the lake but still there were water fowl almost every where we went. When planning the trip I didn't think I/we would enjoy the Wyoming end of the lake with its rolling hills as much as the deep canyons making up the Utah portion of the lake but we were enjoying the views, anchorages and abundant wildlife in Wyoming.

With breakfast over we started to prepare the boat for departure. The last thing I did was I tried to pull the boat into deeper water so the outboard and rudder could be lowered. I didn't pull the boat very far towards the Manson anchor before passing it in the clear water. During the light night winds the boat had drifted around and now the anchor rode was wrapped around what was left of some bushes/trees that were under water in about 6 feet of water. I didn't relish the thought of getting into the 60 degree water that had recently been snow in the Wyoming mountains to the north even though I did have my full wetsuit aboard.

I got in the dinghy and Dottie moved to the bow to handle the anchor rode. I moved over the submerged trees and she gave me some slack but I had to then hold the Mac in place with the line under my knee while I tried to get the line unwrapped. I could see the wrapped line and was finally able to get dome of the line loose from the tree closest to the anchor and then pass that part of the line to Dottie so than then the Mac was held in place by it and the anchor. That made it somewhat easier to deal with the bigger mess at the other tree. Finally after much work with a boat hook that line was also freed from the tree and we were ready to start the day's sail.

After I got the anchor back up on the bow Dottie motored us out a couple hundred yards and the reefed main was hoisted and the genoa pulled out. After sailing a lot on the Bahama trip I wanted to sail every opportunity we got even if it meant we might not cover to much distance. To clear the point east of us and proceed south towards the Utah portion of the lake we had to tack northwest back towards an island we had passed the previous day. After tacking we ran on a broad reach over to and past the point.

All of this took place in very light northeast winds with a boat speed of just under 2 knots, but we weren't in any hurry and were enjoying the scenery and about 85 Canadian Geese that ran parallel to us between the boat and the shore for some distance. Some moved far enough ahead of us to start crossing our bow and out into open water but the approaching boat caused about 2/3's of them to turn and head back from where they had come. Once we were past they all regrouped again off our stern.

Once past the point Dottie turned us south and.....

....... with the help of the whisker pole and preventers we were running wing on wing at about 2 knots in the very light air towards another point about 2 miles south. There the lake makes a turn to the west. Just past that point the Wyoming Game and Fish paid us a visit. They checked our safety gear and asked to see the Zebra Mussel Check Paperwork that we had gotten when the boat was inspected in Green River. We were glad that we had gone back for the AIS decal and the inspection. After a friendly inspection they wished us a good trip and left us.

Shortly after that the wind shifted 180 degrees to a more southerly direction and the whisker pole and preventer lines were quickly removed just in time for our now 'daily high wind event'. The day before and again on this day the wind changed directions almost instantly and intensified to 20 mph or so in a matter of seconds. You could usually see this coming by watching the water. The wind would die and the water would go flat and then you would see the waves coming towards you from the new wind direction. With the higher winds the Mac heeled over and stiffened up and then we were off and running 5-6 knots with the main on the first reef as I hadn't taken it out in the light wind and the genoa pulled in to jib size.

We debated staying out and running back and forth some but ....

..... since we didn't have a known anchorage to head to decided the safe thing to do was to head up into the Squaw Hollow arm of the lake on the lake's west side. After sailing into the mouth of the arm a short ways we lowered the sails and motored westerly. It didn't take long to reach the end of the arm where it was quite narrow by the time we were in 9-10 feet of water. We set the anchor mid-channel but we could only fall back on it about 50 feet before the stern was just off the northern shore and about the same if the boat swung 180 degrees while here.

I wanted to move the anchor closer to the southern shore so up it came after some work. Dottie then moved us in the narrow channel closer to the south shore where it was again set. I now felt better about the scope on the anchor but worried a wind shift could put us into the south shore if we swung on anchor in that direction. To hopefully counter that we drifted back on the 25# Manson and I set the 22# Bruce just off the north shore and then moved the boat back near mid channel favoring the Manson to the south and snugged up the line to the Bruce which would now keep the boat mid-channel on a wind shift. We were now on more or less a Bahamian Moor with the anchors 'cross-channel' (to compensate for wind) vs. 'up/down-channel (to compensate for a tidal current change).

On anchor and with the wind blowing over 30 at times it was time for a late lunch. Latter in the evening the winds dropped and it was time for some reading, cribage (new for me and Dottie won) and then off to sleep.

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