Sailing Stockton Lake, Jun 2, 2012

Saturday, my wife Abby and I took a day away from the kiddo to go sailing. We drove an hour northwest of Springfield to Stockton Lake.

Stockton Lake covers roughly 39 square miles and has almost 300 miles of shoreline. It's pretty much THE sailing lake in the state. When you visit any of the marinas, there is an overwhelming number of masts sticking up. In sharp contrast to many of the other lakes in the area that I've been on. During the few hours we bobbed about in the sun, we could see 15-20 other sailboats on the lake, the entire time. A very welcome sight.

Abby and I sailed out of Crabtree Cove Public Use Area. Probably not the best decision, since the wind was hitting us directly off the main lake channel. It took us some time to tack out to the middle, but it was fairly smooth going once we did. We experienced a few doldrum moments where the wind died altogether, but largely avoided paddling or sculling the canoe around.

The outrigger sailed better than expected with two aboard. Not quite as quick as solo, but still moved along nicely when the wind was up. It should do pretty well with myself and a couple of days worth of camping gear, later this summer.

On our way back to Springfield, we stopped at a small farm winery called 7 C's Winery, in Walnut Grove, Missouri. We did a tasting and bought a bottle of dry red. We plan to head back sometime soon, when they have live music. We're quite lucky to have little places like this in our area.