I drove by Lake Pepin on Friday 3/26 and stopped at the foot of the lake to take some photos of the area where I feared there might be some ice jams. So far it is looking well. The ice is receding upstream as it were. The river is up about four feet since my last post and there appears to be no major break up of ice eminent.  Check out the PDF file to the left for latest ice measurements from the Corp. of Engineers, the ice is melting! Yea!

View to the north from Hwy 61

View to the south from Hwy 61

I drove up from La Crosse, WI and counted 72 bald eagles along the way, nice to see them doing so well. Also 3 turkey vultures and 3 great blue herons, a sure sign of spring I hope. I’m searching for any sign of spring I can find as there is still eight inches of new snow in our yard and this mornings temperature is a brisk 10 degrees F. We are very anxious to get started on the spring preparations to get our Islander 28, Aurion in the water. As you may or may not recall, we purchased her last November and not being able to sail our new pride and joy all winter has been a killer. I do not recommend buying a boat in the fall in areas where the water gets hard in the winter! We have driven all our friends and family mad I’m sure, with all of our conversations beginning and ending with the word “sailboat”. What can I say we are sailing junkies for sure.

For the folks out there who have Robert H. Perry designed sailboats it may interest you to know that copies of his sail plan drawings are available from the designer himself. A couple of weeks ago we sent Robert an email and after a brief conversation and sending a reasonable fee, we now have some awesome sail plan drawings of our Islander 28 to look at on the wall in the office at home. Being an interminable dreamer, I can spend countless moments staring at the drawings. I guess my school teachers were right, I daydream a lot. Oh well. That’s when I come up with some good ideas occasionally. Like buying a sailboat.