Saturday, September 26, 2009

A survey of "Limpan"

No, not a boat survey, it's an island. In fact it's the nearest uninhabited one from my club, and despite having sailed past it lots of times I never had been ashore there. I had anchored in its lee a few times and seen other boats moor at the rocks, so I knew it was possible.

This week-end a friend and I decided to give it a try. There was quite a blow, with very gusty winds from the west, so we started with the small jib and a reef in the main. This worked quite well and with the wind mostly on the beam we made it to Limpan in record time.

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When we came closer we saw that there was another boat already there, trying to find a spot to moor. So, we would not have the privilege of our own island - oh well. We did, however, find a nice spot to moor, out of sight of the other boat.

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The island itself makes quite a good lee, despite the wind howling past it on both sides. On this picture the border of the lee can clearly be seen, where the water is darker the wind is blowing.

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We had a little picnic and then made a thorough examination of the island. It's probably less than half a kilometer long and at most about 100m wide, so the survey was done quickly. A good thing was that there is almost no undervegetation, so it was very easily accessible.

View towards the island from its southern point.
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And the narrow sound between it and the next little island to the north.

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The northern one might be worth a visit as well, but it's not as easy to get to as the beach is very shallow at most places. We saw two kajakers however who went ashore there later.

Survey finished, we set off back home. As we had the wind dead against us in the beginning, we did use the engine for a while. Yes, I know, but I am not getting any younger, either.

Finally a video I shot on the island. It turned out in some Blair Witch Project style, which wasn't really the intention, but you can see a little of the island anyway...



Altoghether, a nice day trip and perhaps the last landfall on unexplored land of the season.

Friday, September 18, 2009

Afternoon sail

The weather has been glorious here this last week and is supposed to stay that way through the week-end. Of course, I have to work the whole week-end, so there will be no sailing for me. But I did sneak out of the office at 3 pm today just to get a few hours on the boat anyway. There was not too much wind, but enough to sail around the nearest island.

I took a short video when passing through the narrow sound north of it. Someone there has bought himself an old military vessel, I'm not really sure what kind though.