Quote:
Originally Posted by MeredithMan
So my father grew up on the ocean, (Hough's Neck in Quincy), and spent his youth till early 20's sailing around Boston Harbor. Then came WWII and he spent a number of years in the Navy. Bottom line, he was experienced when it came to Ocean navigation and markers, but when he bought his first boat on the lake in 1974, he was clueless on NH inland waters navigation and markers. We had just passed the end of Governor's Island heading towards The Broads. My mother and I were in the front of their new 18' Wellcraft bowrider and my father was driving. I was 12 at the time. My mother and I happened to suddenly notice all the huge boulders below us and screamed, "ROCKS!!" My father slammed it into neutral. When we all put our hearts back in our chests, we paddled our way out of The Witches. The only thing that saved our bacon was that it was early May and the water was high.
That was our major life lesson on Winnipesaukee navigation!
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Always respect the lake. As soon as you don't...
I've been boating here since I was a kid and recently moved here full time. I've probably used the boat 30+ days this summer and (knock on wood) the shenanigans I've witnessed have been mostly harmless/hilarious, like the guy in the Yamaha who couldn't square up to the wolfeboro gas dock to save his life. (You know, the really wide one with plenty of nav room all around it?)
The poor gas girl had to help whip him backwards around the corner by rope.
What concerns me are people like this in emergency situations. They do dumb things like gun it and hit people.
Anyway,back to the witches: My first time back here after many years was 2018. I rented a boat that year and was coming out of Paugus to head towards Ellacoya, where my rental house was. Keep in mind, I have years of boating experience, but I ended up swinging all the way around Governors island, ending up in Meredith. I noticed a few rocks along the way and moved on.
(We can just bury that part of story and pretend I ended up in Meredith on purpose
On the way back, I took the non bridge route around governors again and sort of casually turned when I saw rocks sticking out of the water.
It was then that it hit me how easily people end up in the witches:
Now that I'm local, I know exactly where it is at all times. The damn thing is over 30 acres and is easy to circle around, but it is so big, it's not apparent to noobs that those markers are around a circle. One could easily mistake the far ends as noting a hazard between the witches and timber island, leading them to head straight into the witches--if they don't see the other markers. The spacing of the markers is wide enough that many can't correlate them as a circle.
I know there is a fine line between preserving the natural beauty of the lake and filling it with signs, but it's actually surprising that it isn't marked more obviously.
But I'll digress: Perhaps it's best for this lake to maintain a Darwin factor to keep the dumbs away
