This was going to be a post about my thoughts regarding Paul Kelley’s comments to Heather Parent which he submitted earlier this week, but I couldn’t think of anything I wanted to say. Maybe I will later, maybe I won’t. So right now I’ll talk about launching my boat.

Peggy Ann is the name my wife’s mother and most of her friends and relatives call her. I call her Margaret. Margaret is a wonderful name for a wife I think, but a lousy name for a boat don’t you agree?

Today seemed like the day to do it, it was warm enough and the wind and weather was right and sounded like it wouldn’t be very good again for a while. I’ve been ready to go for the past week (last year I put in on the 21st of  March). It took two of us pushing/lifting on the boat and one person standing in the back of it to get it off the trailer and into the water as there wasn’t even close to enough water to float it off. Thank goodness it’s a relatively light aluminum boat with a small motor. If it was a heavier fiberglass boat with a big motor, it would have been a lot more difficult. The State designed the ramp to require a minimum of 2.3′ of water over the foot of it but today there was only about 1.7″ of water over the end of it. I didn’t take any pictures but it must have looked a lot like this one at left though today the water was about a foot higher than in the picture. Now that it’s boating season again I will start including the “water over the foot of the ramp” data to the water level chart.

Also planning on putting the Hobie Cat in the lake this year even though low water will make it risky to sail (it’s hairy enough as it is to sail it without having to worry about hitting rocks at 20 knots). But I figure I know where the ledges, shoals, and rocks are and I’m not going to let Paul Kelley and his low water regime rob me of another summer of sailing. We’ll be putting it in sometime in mid to late May, as soon as the water warms up a bit more and I can get a mooring set.