With the Fourth of July weekend upon us, Debbie and I snuck out of work early on Friday and headed up to Lake Tahoe for an overnight stay. We were both a little nervous about staying the night “on the hook” for the first time, but I had spotted a neat little half-moon beach called Calawee Cove at Rubicon Point that I thought would protect us from west and southerly winds, so we went for it.

Winds were quite light on our way down to Rubicon Point, so we did a little “motor-assisted” sailing, as I wanted to have plenty of daylight to set the anchor and watch to see that we weren’t dragging the anchor before we went to sleep. We arrived at Calawee Cove at D.L. Bliss State Park about 7:30 p.m., dropped anchor in about 16.5 feet, and motored back on the anchor to set the hook in the soft mud. I set the GPS to mark where the anchor lay, and used that and sightings on a large Jeffrey Pine and the rocks of Rubicon Point to gauge if the boat was anchored securely.

Debbie put together a yummy picnic of French and American cheeses, Ancho Chili jam, crackers, fresh bread, and olives, and we relaxed in the cockpit and studied the changing light on the mountains as the sun slowly set. We stayed out until the amazing panoply of stars appeared overhead. Tahoe is so dark at night that you can clearly see the Milky Way, and it seems like you can see five times the depth of stars as we can only 30 miles away in Reno, because of the light pollution there.

Even as swells from distant boats and slight, swirling breezes took Splendido in many directions, the anchor seemed locked in place as we observed our position for more than two hours. We tidied up above and below, and I did one last position check before going below to sleep. We crawled in to the aft berth for the first time (I’m not going to lie…it was a bit like the first time you try squeezing into a mummy-style sleeping bag), and joked about which of us felt more claustrophobic, the protocol if one of us needed to get up during the night to pee, and so forth.

I had my GPS-armed iPhone within reach, and decided to do hourly checks. This was a mistake. I should have just taken a he-man dose of Xanax and called it a night. After about 30 checks of the GPS within the first two hours (7 yds. to anchor, bearing 254 degrees…20 yards to anchor, bearing 178 degrees…I watched nervously as the boat did what boats do: swing around the anchor as breezes or currents dictate. Meanwhile, Debbie was curled up like a cat, sleeping peacefully, oblivious to my information-fueled anxiety. At some point, exhaustion overtook me, and I dozed off.

At 4:39 a.m., I awoke, crawled out of bed, and looked out the hatch. Splendido was exactly where she should be, Tahoe was millpond-smooth, and an amazing pre-dawn glow was setting the mountain tops ablaze with a soft rosy light. Finally confident that we were not going anywhere (and after all, shipwreck and disaster are much easier to deal with by the light of day), I fell soundly back to sleep.

About 5:30 a.m., I got up, and the beauty of Rubicon Point took my breath away. Debbie was meditating with a cup of fresh French-pressed coffee on the bow.

I asked for a sip of coffee, then went back to bed. About 7:30 a.m., I got up and walked about the deck, snapping some photos of our quiet little cove.

We were under no illusions, however, that our bliss would last. As the Tahoe sun warmed the earth (but not the water!), the beaches started to fill up; the boats started to anchor nearby, and the squeals and shouts of hikers on the Rubicon Trail filled the air.

“What does this remind you of?” Debbie asked.

“Coney Island”? Grand Central Station?” I offered.

“We’ve never been to Coney Island.” she countered.

“What, then?” I asked.

A long pause, as she waited for me to consider. Then, with a knowing look, she said:

“Molokini, with all the boats jockeying for position.”

We both laughed, with visions of Maui’s “must-see” snorkeling location vivid in our minds.

After a few more hours of watching the throngs assemble, and watching speedboats park closer and closer to us with radios chattering and beer cans opening, we quietly planned our escape. A faint breeze came up a little after 1 p.m., and Debbie gently motored up to the anchor while I reeled it in, and then we were off for a lovely afternoon of sailing.

Despite having SPF 55 sunscreen on and our biggest hats and sun cover-ups, we both ended up with pink noses.

“We need a bimini to protect our skin,” opined Debbie.

“Hey, how about we save the money and just use a blue poly tarp with bungees?” I mused.

She gave me a square-eyed look.

“Not on this beautiful boat, we’re not,” she said with an air of finality. “We’ll find the money, but we have to get a bimini top if we’re going to be out here on days like this.”

When we got home later that night, and we were both pinker than we’d care to admit, we got online and began researching custom bimini covers for Catalina 270 sailboats.

Fair winds and smooth sailing. DB