Tuesday, August 23, 2016

Monday, August 22, 2016

Down-Winders in Angola

Click on map for larger view. First posted 6/4/07

On a good South Westerly, Angola-on-the-Lake is a great place to have a long, safe,down-winder. Grab a buddy and park one of your autos at Wendt Road or Sturgeon Point. Then drive to Point Breeze's Erie Beach. This spot has free parking, rest rooms and a nice grassy rigging area.
After rigging, launch upwind of the creek and swim area, then work your way down the coast. You will encounter Point Breeze, this point drops off fairly quickly to about 6 feet deep, and goes to about 10 feet deep, 100 yards out.
After the point, look out for the wind shadow, you will need to go about a 1/3 of the way down this bay before you can ride into the shore area, this bay is all sand with no hidden hazards.
The next point is the Perma Curl. This spot has waves which are long, smooth and slow. This is because the bottom is fairly smooth slate (the rock shelf goes out about 250 yards with water that's about waist to chest deep, then suddenly drops off to around 15 feet.) Session this spot for a while on both sides of the point, the wave has a different feel on the far side. Be sure not to venture into the wind shadow. Note: the old docks are far far into the wind shadow, so do not worry about them.
Now you're ready to venture out to The Twilight Zone, which is about 2 miles out on a slight reach off of Perma Curl or can be reached on a SW wind from Mickey Rats. This is a rock shoal about 4 to 7 feet deep that drops off to around 35 feet, on all sides. The Twilight Zone is about two football fields in length and width. When a swell hits this, it engulfs the shoal and converges in on itself, producing very large frothy predictable waves and yet very very smooth in-between. A 5 to 6 foot lake swell will have waves peaking at 8 to 10 feet in The Twilight Zone!
When you're done with the sense of loss of time and space, head for the corner of Grandview Bay, near Kidds and Rats. Work your way down this sandy coast while slashing waves back and forth, with off-the-lips and bottom-turns. The ground swell gets just a little bit bigger before you pass the Water Works Building.
Just after the river mouth, past Bennett Beach, the bottom turns to rock with a shallow sandbar near the shore. This is Look-Out Point or Wendt Road access point. You may want to pull the pin at this point.
If you decide to push onward to Sturgeon Point, stay about 50 feet off of the shore because even though the shore is sandy, the shoreline is slate and is very, very slippery. Work your way down past Wendt Beach Park, and soon you will see the end of a great down winder, Sturgeon Point. The small beach head just before the marina is sand, however there are cobblestones in the water.
Do it fast and it'll take about an hour, or take your time and it could take a few hours, either way you'll have done a great down-winder!