Winter 2012
It’s been a year since we experienced the encounter with the whale as we were entering Tennacatita Bay to anchor for the evening.
Three months following the incident, our beloved “Luffin It” was turned over to our insurance company as the survey confirmed it was a total loss. We both talk about our experiences with nothing but happy memories only regretting the early curtailment our Mexican sailing.
We returned home mid March of 2011 and made two purchases, Hobie kayaks for each of us and a 1988 Catalina 30 sailboat, North Star. Since we live on Lake Pend Oreille, we were able to drop a 3000 pound anchor out in front of our home we are able to keep North Star there Spring, summer and Fall. We have found that it’s best to put her away in our dock slip across the lake over winter and during our absences. This worked out very well last summer, as we were able to take advantage of every little burst of wind and sail for an hour or for a day, as we were only minutes away from having “sails up.” Note the picture taken at anchor.
We have found a great deal of joy in sailing on this lake; it has many coves and inlets where we can drop an anchor, swim, barbeque, dinghy into a beach and hike or pull up to a restaurant dock and have dinner. We believe that this has helped us move on and adjust from our experiences in Mexico.
A word about Lake Pend O’Reille – It’s a beautiful 42 mile long lake, as wide as 3 miles in places, and a very deep lake, over 1200 ft in places, which adds some challenge to anchoring out. It is surrounded by mountains, and you can sometimes see mountain goats climbing around the mountain peaks. The Navy tests prototype submarines in the southern end of the lake, though we wouldn’t know it if they didn’t mention it. The fishing is good. . . and we carry our fishing poles as we sail, though usually waiting for our anchorage to fish. While it is a big lake, we are fortunate that it’s not a very busy lake, so the sailing is not restrictive, except for the winds, which do tend to swirl around at times.