Fred Allen:  “Most of us spend the first six days of each week sowing wild oats; then we go to church on Sunday and pray for a crop failure.”

H. L. Mencken:  “It is hard to believe that a man is telling the truth when you know that you would lie if you were in his place.”

Folks, do I have a pleasant surprise for you! I bet you expected that the very next time I posted on the blog, I would give you a stroke by stroke account of the Malden Yacht Club’s 139 mile journey down Lake Champlain. And you would be wrong … I’ll save that for another time. Instead, I am going to hand the keyboard over to Mrs. Ol’ P because she has a whopper of a story to tell … and it’s all true! (Don’t get used to that commodity on the Malden Yacht Club Blog.) Anyway, before I spoil her effort, why don’t I let Mrs. Ol’ P tell you what happened on the very first day of our most recent Lake Champlain adventure … even I couldn’t make this stuff up. Continue reading ‘A History of Harry, A Hard Time Horticulturist’ »

Stephen Bayne:  “I am rather like a mosquito in a nudist camp; I know what I ought to do, but I don’t know where to begin.”

Karolina Kurkova:  “Hiking in undiscovered places is a lot of fun.”

If someone speaks for a group long enough and often enough, then there is a distinct possibility that outsiders could identify all of the group with that spokesman. This thought occurred to me when I heard of a recent adventure in which I, fortunately, had not been a participant. “Imagine“, I thought, “the confusion of those on the Malden Yacht Club periphery if they hear this tale. Their core beliefs about the MYC would have to be shaken by a tremor measuring 8.8 on the Richter scale.” Most of what has appeared on the Malden Yacht Club Blog has concerned our weekly outings and occasional road trips. The vast majority of the posts have been written in the first person by yours truly, and their tone has been influenced by the fact that I tend to be very cautious and conservative when choosing not only conditions and courses for kayaking, but also cozy accommodations for kayakers. In short, it is fair to say that when it involves inviting others to the water, the Ol’ P is a paragon of paddling propriety. It would not be a large leap to conclude that everyone else in the Malden Yacht Club exhibit’s the same laudable trait … it would, however, be a very big mistake. Why? Because we have a significant number of members who are truly nuts … and you are about to hear from two of them. Continue reading ‘The Hazards Of OZ’ »

Eleven paddlers from the Malden Yacht Club traveled the southern most 24 miles of Lake Champlain on May 24 and May 25. The paddlers were: Betsy, Bonnie, Don, Ed, Greg, Mike, Pat, Paul A., Paul VB, Rocco, and Roy. On the first day, three of the group paddled from Whitehall onto South Bay, and the rest traveled from Whitehall to Benson Landing, Vt. The second day covered the distance from Benson Landing to Ticonderoga. Continue reading ‘Trip Report for the Whitehall - Ticonderoga Section of Lake Champlain’ »