Tag: Watersports

  • Essex Regatta 1960

    Essex Regatta 1960

    An archival flashback to the 11th Essex Regatta (and 34th Westport Regatta) as featured in August and September 1960 Valley News articles. Ready for summer?!

  • Favorite Sports: Top 5

    Favorite Sports: Top 5

    What are your favorite sports to watch and play? It’s probably pretty clear to you that Susan and I enjoy an active (preferably outdoor) lifestyle. Sports are a big part of that. And outdoor sports were central to our original decision to swap NYC for Essex back in 2006. So today’s Bloganuary prompt has pretty…

  • To Visit: Top 5

    To Visit: Top 5

    Name an attraction or town close to home that you still haven’t got around to visiting. Another provocative Bloganuary prompt. I’ve exercised a little creative license nevertheless. The emphasis of the prompt is visitable places. I’ve amplified my picks to include activities in most of the places. In fact, for some of the attractions I’m…

  • For Fun: Top 5

    For Fun: Top 5

    List five things you do for fun. Almost a year and a half into Redacting Rosslyn, I’ve taken a semi respite from the rhythm of old house journaling, not by interrupting my daily updates — those have continued albeit with a different flavor and focus from previous posts — but by handing over the steering…

  • Play Daily

    Play Daily

    From our first fanciful forays — pipe dreaming and what-iffing — Rosslyn represented for Susan and for me an opportunity to play more. Or so we imagined back in 2005 and 2006 as we slowly talked each other into a monumental life change. Although fantasy and reality haven’t overlapped exactly the way we conceived, most…

  • Passing Split Rock

    Passing Split Rock

    “I’m just now passing Split Rock,” I tell Susan while sailing north toward home. Or when heading to Point Bay Marina for refueling after a wakesurf or waterski session in Whallons Bay. Or when skating south on the frozen lake… Our Rosslyn lifestyle has been informed by the moods, temperament, activities, topography, and breathtaking beauty…

  • November Windsurfing

    November Windsurfing

    Watersports were one of the lifestyle passions that lured us to full time, year round Champlaining. And windsurfing, even late November windsurfing, was one of our favorites. We could… windsurf for half the year instead of just two or three months, starting in May with drysuits and finishing in the end of October. (Source: Almost…

  • Mary Wade Rock Art

    Mary Wade Rock Art

    Mary Wade’s Essex renderings are legendary. Her rock painting of Rosslyn’s boathouse depicts Rosslyn’s boathouse as viewed from the Essex-Charlotte ferry dock, an enterprise originally owned by her grandfather, if memory serves. This gift from Mary immediately became a favorite in our collection of her Rosslyn inspired creations. This certainly isn’t my first Mary Wade…

  • Happy Birthday, Susan!

    Happy Birthday, Susan!

    Today I wish a very merry, happy, and healthy birthday to the wonder woman with whom I’m as besotted today as I was that first summer more than two decades ago when we happened onto each other waterskiing, dancing, hiking, and laughing on the Adirondack Coast of Lake Champlain. From wanderlust to houselust and houselust…

  • Champlaining & ADK Surfing

    Champlaining & ADK Surfing

    Sometimes in September, we’re still wakesurfing. Once upon a time we actually continued watersports right until the end of October, breaking ice off of the boat cover, cocooning ourselves in layers of fleece, mittens, and hats… But that hasn’t happened for a few years. So today’s ADK surfing superhero snapshot is, in fact, an illusion…

  • Wakesurfy Test Drive

    Wakesurfy Test Drive

    Caveat Lector: stream of conscious wakesurfy boat post ahead… Saturday we celebrated the end of summer with one final wakesurf. Or maybe the first wakesurf of autumn. First and last. So I suppose we were celebrating the end of one surfing season, and the prospect of an even better one next year. After it rained…

  • Undocking 2023

    Undocking 2023

    Were back at that bittersweet bookend to summer: undocking. And it’s in especially poignant threshold this year. We pulled the docks, boatlift, and both powerboats on Friday, September 22, 2023. The last day of summer, literally and metaphorically. At Rosslyn we… use the term [undocking] to describe the annual autumn removal of docks (and boat…