5/20 MM19 95L/4.7M ~6-9pm

[RickHeninger]

Arrived to MM19 at around 5:30PM... The lake was beautifully glassed over... The reflection on the water was amazing... And the water's color was a translucent shade of paradise green... There was a wall of dust to the south however... Jim Hornbeck was driving down that dirt road behind me, and we just stared at the beautiful lake with absolute confusion on our faces.

I rigged for the forecast!?!? 4.7M and 95L board... Jim you rigged a 5.5? We had our bases covered... As we sat in the bed of my truck watching the windline approach at around 6:30PM while swarms of midge flies buzzed in the distance. They weren't bugging us... All of a sudden bam, it hit, and we jumped out and into the water...

The first few reaches were 4.0... Actually the 4.7 felt perfect and the water was green and the steep ramps were so clean. I could see the coral reef below the whole way out. All the tropical fish were so colorful... Seriously, we could see the bottom because the wind came all at once and I guess the lake was so settled that the water didn't get stirred up for a long time. After the first couple reaches it turned down to 5.5 again and Jim was stylin' and I was thinking of rerigging for about 20 minutes but then it turned on in a big way.

Spent the next hour perfectly powered to overpowered 4.7. Wind tailed off again to 5.5 for the last half hour. The desert southwest wind was nice and warm. Made the clean green water feel nice. Josh S. showed up and we rode till late. I had to go to hoops, and shined my headlights on the water as Jim came jibing in... It was getting pretty dark! Great session.

Ooh! Temps at UL just hit my doable but not fun level 48F! Too cold for any event! (7:45am reading)

[jimhornbeck]

mm19 was sweet. 5.7 -4.5 most on 5.7 . Sailed in the dark with Josh just one more reach,said that a few times.

[Rick McClain]

Well,
I'm glad somebody got to sail. I arrived around 3:00PM thinking I would get there just in time to rig and sail, too. As you say, the water was like a mirror. I decided that if I couldn't sail, I might as well make myself useful so I spent about an hour and a half fending off midges and sweating like a hog while I cut an opening in the tamarisks with my machete large enough to get a sail through over at the eastern most launch point. Was sorry all I had was a machete. A pair of tree limb shears would have been much better. I wouldn't have had to work so hard and I could have clipped the tamarisks closer to the ground. But hey, at least now you can get a sail to the water there.
I'm thinking of applying for the UWA Award for Bozo with the Most Miles Driven and Least Time on Water. I've been out to Rush Lake twice without launching for lack of wind; one trip to MM19; one trip to Rush, then south to Saratoga Springs/Pelican Bay and back home with about 30 minutes sailing time; and a trip to Grantsville for 25 minutes of sailing. I even drove to Strawberry Reservoir recently and got no wind. Thats a lot of driving and not much time on water; a ratio of about 13 hours of driving for 1 hour of sailing. I hope nobody else is doing worse. That's about $1,000,000.00 worth of gas for an hour of sailing !!! I'm not sure I can afford this sport !!!