Ba.lie ?leasanl ranks as one of the mos/ popular (PRECEDING PANEL, PAGES 38

AND 39) All manner of sailboats - sporty International 14s to seaworthy Catalinas to smaller models - race on Lake Pleasant. (OPPOSITE PAGE) One of

recreational lakes in Arizona . And its 10,000 surface acres

allow room for craft of all types .

protruding centerboard trunk, slipping in water pooled in the bilge. I bang my shin, but our boat, the Hot Schott, now rides evenly

"That's good," Schott says. "Ready to come about." My husband , Matthias, and I dodge the swinging boom and scramble to the other rail, becoming en­tangled briefly in the lines. The Hot Schott again leans steeply, and water laps over the lower side. If we're too slow in balancing the boat, it could capsize.

The fickle desert winds - a bratty gust one mo­ment, a demure wisp the next - make sailing on lake Pleasant a challenge. Most Arizona lakes nestle in canyons, but Lake Pleasant's open vistas and eleva­tion (1,700 feet) expose it to the wind coming in from the Bradshaw Mountains. During one outing, Schott recalls, strong gales cracked the wooden boom of his sailboat. The wind dies in the middle of the day be­cause the hot air rising from the desert floor causes a wind shift, said Dr. Randy Cerveriy, associate profes­sor of geography at Arizona State University The re­sulting placid afternoons test a sailors talent: A random puff will power one craft while its neighbors stall on glassy waters.

Of course, Lake Pleasant's shifting winds add to the allure. "Every time you go out, it's different, because of the wind or what-have-you, and it's a challenge to get the boat to go how you want it to ," observed long­time Arizona Yacht Club member Bob Conner.

Good sailing in such a dry part of the country comes as news to some people. Conner said he's used to rib­bing from those who sail the oceans blue. "People in other parts of the country don't believe we sail in a desert," he said.

In fact, Arizona has a suprisingly large number of boats - 160,767 - 28 ,000 of them sailboats - ac­cording to Kathy Goleman of the Arizona Game and Fish Department. "Per capita, we have more boats compared with any other state," she said. She chuck­led when asked why "It 's hot here and everybody wants to be in the water," she explained.

Today, beating the heat isn't our motivation - we came here to compete in an Arizona Yacht Club regatta. The Hot Schott heads toward about 50 other sailboats clustered on Lake Pleasant , their white sails elegant against the scrubby brush of the shore­line and the gray-hued Bradshaw Mountains in the distance .

Fishing boats return with their day's catch as we sail out. The water level falls so much during the summer that one can float through a gap in the original dam that created lake Pleasant when it stanched the Agua Fria's flow in 1927. The wide earthen wall of the Waddell Dam, built in 1993, cuts an imposing swath across the water. The Central Arizona Project uses the lake as a holding tank. In the spring, the water reaches its high mark of 1,702 feet, trans­forming a few tiny islands into reefs .

We join the rest of the boats as they mill about waiting to race, from sporty International 14s, sailed by young guys in wet suits , to seaworthy Catalinas, whose crews luxuriate on real seats safely out of the booms reach. When the starting horn sounds, we swing into

seven 17-foot Thistle Class boats in the race lurches on the "waves" of Lake Pleasant. (LEFT AND BELOW) The race committee's official chase boat awaits the starting horn near a triangular course marked by yellow buoys.

place , one of seven Thistles . The first race follows a tri­

angle course to the north, marked by yellow buoys. As our boat planes at full power, we "hike out" - leaning back­ward over the water off the high side to counterbalance the force of the wind. Matthias, sit­ting in front, whoops as the cold spray from a speedboat's wake drenches him.

We clip along at about 12 knots per hour, trying to out­run our neighbor, who flanks our right side, but he catches a good wind and gains yards by the time we cross the line in sixth place. Vowing to do better in the next race, we break for lunch.

As they rigged the boat this morning, Schott and Matthias reviewed the finer points of sailing. As engineers, both de­light in the workings of three­dimensional objects, but I cheerfully abandoned them to investigate a wild burro saun­tering across a parking lot. About 225 descendants of the burros once used in mining operations still roam the re­gion. The rest of the burro

troop , two of them knobby-kneed youngsters, dozed in the shade of some paloverde trees above the lake. Below them, the harbor bristled with masts .

When Arizona Highways ran a story about sailing in its Sep­tember 1962 issue, Lake Pleasant had earned the distinction of being one of the more remote, albeit rewarding, sailing spots in Arizona. "The brave one who made the trip, towing his sailboat through the heat and dust over the rough road could be certain of a wonderful sail on a beautiful, uncrowded waterway, sur­rounded here, not by steep walls, but by gentle, rolling hills and the same strange spectacle of desert landscape surrounding a body of water," wrote au thors Mr. and Mrs. Stuart Weiner.

Judging by the number of watercraft criss-crossing the lake,

Arizona Highways 41

civilization and paved roads caught up with Lake Pleasant big-time. It ranks as one of the most popular recreational lakes in Ari­zona, said Ranger Thom Valencia, of the Maricopa County Parks and Recreation Department. And its 10,000 surface acres allow room fo r craft of all types - from lavish houseboats to kamikaze jet skis.

Occasionally one sees a parasailer soar­ing high above the speedboat pulling it; or on the horizon to the south, the sun gleams off low-flying ultralights launched from a neighboring airstrip.

The lake's other denizen of the air, the American bald eagle, eludes us this trip. Since 1986, a pair of eagles has nested where the Agua Fria enters Lake Pleasant in the northeast comer. Its not surprising we don't see them. These solitary birds don't travel far from their nests, said Rand Hubbell of the Maricopa County Parks and Recreation Department. From mid-December through mid-June, this area remains closed to give the pair space to raise their eaglets.

The eagles may be cocooning today, but a red-tailed hawk swoops above the saguaro- and creosote-packed hills in search of a meal. Most of the sigh tseers leave the scenic overlook above the dam to eat under the shade of ramadas on the west side of the lake. Tents line the shore, where more than 150 campsites were added along with the Desert Outdoor Center, a facility available for rent by church and school groups.

Lunch over, we have four minutes until our next race. "It looks like we want to be on starboard tack, pin end," Schott says. "Every­body's going to go for that. " I have no idea what he means and meditate on the sunlight reflecting off the waves. I get splashed for daydreaming.

The horn for the triangle course interrupts our boating lesson. We start out last but round the first buoy in second place. We all

WH E N YOU GO

I --~

Location: 30 miles northwest of Phoenix in north Peoria .

Getting There: To reach Lake Pleasant Regional Park on the

west side, take State Route 74 to the Castle Hot Springs

Road exit and dr ive north approximately 2 miles on a paved

road. This entrance takes you to the main camping areas, the

10-lane boat ramp and the visitors center. The next entrance, about 3

miles farther north , takes you to the four-lane boat ramp and shoreline

access. To reach Pleasant Harbor Marina on the east side , take Interstate

17 to the Carefree Highway exit and drive west about 11 miles. Turn right

onto Lake Pleasant Road, proceed approximately 3 miles, then turn right

onto Pleasant Harbor Boulevard . Drive 1.5 miles to the marina.

Hours: Marina, 24 hours daily. Visitors center, daily, 9 A.M. to 5 P.M .

Fees: Marina, $6, car; free , watercraft . Visitors center, $5 , vehicle; free ,

watercraft, Camping: $5 to $15.

Lodging: 150-plus campsites.

Attractions: A convenience store, deli, rentals and boat repair services

at Pleasant Harbor Marina. Desert Outdoor Center, an educational renta l

facility, open only by reservation.

Additional Information: Marina , (623) 566-3100 or (520) 501 -3100.

Entry station for general information, (520) 501 -17 10/1702. Visitors

Center, (623) 780-9857. Lake Pleasant Watercraft Rental , (623)

516-2397. Desert Outdoor Center is available for rental for meetings

and overnight stays, used mostly by schools , church groups, etc.;

reservations, (520) 501 -1730.

(OPPOSITE PAGE) Dan Schott and Matthias Pfeiff er set sail aboard Hot Schott, Dan's Thistle Class boat. (LEFT) Racers enjoy the fun and hope to avoid the A1izona Yacht Club's annual "Ye Old Blunder Bucket" award.

duck as the boom comes about. Once around, Mike Yarnell up­braids us for turning a corner too widely and cutting off his shiny red boat. The two skip­pers squabble like seagulls over the racing rules before Yarnell's lead widens. Matthias raises the billowing spinnaker and lowers our jib. Well-rehearsed crews do this wi th amazing speed, without even talking to each other. We cheat by watching boats ahead of us so we can an­ticipate Schott's commands.

On the way to the third buoy, a loose line whips Matthias' glass­es off his face, and I turn just in time to watch them sink into the depths of Lake Pleasant - our first sailing casualty The distraction costs us time, and we finish behind the pack. We have one more race to redeem ourselves.

Sailing always struck me as a laid-back sort of experience, but I now see it as a muscle-taxing, shin-bruising, pulse-quickening pastime. But while our sailing companions maintain a competitive spirit, they also show a good-natured camaraderie.

The Arizona Yacht Club gives out a number of awards at its year -ly banquet, but no one wants to win the one dubbed "Ye Old Blunder Bucket." One sailor earned this honor for sailing his boat "loaded with six persons, over his trailer and into the trunk of his car." Another received the award for chartering a "hot" racing sail­boat for a regatta , only to be beaten by the crew that borrowed his regular boat. According to club chronicles, other awardees had fallen overboard, sunk their boats, loaded boats onto the wrong trailers, started races backward, "pretzeled" their masts and drowned tow vehicles and trailers.

Hoping to avoid such mishaps, at around 3 o'clock in the af­ternoon we start our final race . The winds have taken a siesta. Matthias fiddles with the slack sails. Another Thistle creeps up beside us and around. Impatient with our slow progress, we scan the water in search of breeze-ruffled waves. We finally catch some wind, but several boats finish ahead of us. Mike Yarnell and his red boat beat us by three or four seconds.

Our day of boating over, Schott sets sail across the lake to the dock where we tie up beside a long line of others and wait for him to fetch his car and trailer. Yarnell pulls in beside us and climbs onto the swaying dock. "Well, we sure had a lot of differ­ent winds out there today," he says . "Good old Lake Pleasant. "

Indeed. We didn't win any races today, and it will probably take a few more outings before we can make our skipper proud, but sailing on this lake proves just pleasant enough to come back for more - maverick winds, bruised shins, lost glasses and all. ~

Mesa-based Lori Rohlk Pfeiffer plays in more water now that she li ves in the desert than she ever did in the Midwes t.

Even though this was Ken Ross' first sailing photo assignment, he managed to dodge the swinging boom. He lives in Scottsdale.

Arizona Highways 43