Our vacation Lake Hartwell GA

We just got back from our vacation up to the border of Ga and SO Carolina at Lake Hartwell (the lake is huge, 40 miles long).
We had a blast, and took the Ultimate Tandem Island (the name of our boat) out pretty much every day.
Since we had our camper along we had to car top the TI, fortunately we had a lakefront site and were able to leave the boat on shore for the week.
We did all the regular stuff, exploring snorkeling, etc. We don't fish at all so we didn't take any fishing stuff with, and don't know the rules up there on spear fishing so we left the spear guns and scuba equipment at home.
The lake was built by the Army core of Engineers in the 60's, we had never heard of it before, and this was our first time there.

Here is a pic of the boat on shore ready to go out:


Here is a pic of our rig on the road with boat on the roof:


Here is our campsite:


Another view:


Here is a closeup of the boat on the roof (notice the vinyl covered clothing rods that support the boat evenly:


Here is the dam:

Here is the lake above the dam:


Winds were pretty steady all week 12-16 mph. The lake was suprisingly flat ( few waves,,, in contrast Sarasota with 15 mph winds is 3 ft washing machine chop)

Here is a video I made trying to go to the dam, The dam was like 20 plus miles from our campsite, so it was a foolish mission (just to take a pic of the dam (lol)), but I had fun anyway.
Unfortunately the route to the dam was direct upwind with around 8 mph winds, with pretty big gusts periodically. so I had to tack a lot trying to get there (really unusual for me since I don't typically tack ever). My GPS got wet and no longer works, so I couldn't measure speeds and distance accurately, but I figure I averaged 8-10 mph for most of the trip with a couple 12 mph jumps. I filled up my tanks when I left, and measured my fuel usage when I got back, I used a little less than a quart of fuel for the day. I think I traveled right around 20 miles total (there and back), I was out a little over two hrs.
Notice in the video the AMA's are both typically out of the water completely, now I have the boat widened to 12 ft wide (a normal TI is 10 ft wide), pretty much everything is improved, best mod I've done so far, and I'm really happy with it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ9Y7gBo8-Y



I kind of regret not bringing my giant spinnaker along (similar to Hobies new spinnaker, but really old (6 yrs)), the winds were much better than I anticipated, I would have used it had I not left it at home.

All in all we had a blast, except for the couple hrs it took to get the boat off the roof and rig the boat, fortunately I only had to do that once, when we got there, then again when we packet up to go home, Normal launch time from our trailer is around 15 minutes. However we had no choice, because the camper uses the hitch, our choices were to leave the boat at home, or put it on the roof of our Denali.

Very nice setup FE! While you where up in GA I was in your neck of the woods last week sailing with Dolphin Island Club for Sailstice. We had some great winds in Sarasota Bay and not much chop as the winds where coming out of the West at 13-16mph. We launched from Ken Thompson Park. Got to meet Butch Newell aka: Hollywood (I think). Great guy and very knowledgeable.

I've been thinking about doing some camping this September in GA on Lake Strom Thurmond. Have you ever been on that lake? Looks beautiful!

John

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2015-Tandem Island

Yea we stayed on a lake side site on Thurmond a few yrs back for a week, I think that may be another Army Corp of Engineers lake, really nice, our site looked very similar to the one in my pics above. We had an Oasis and a Revo 13 with us on that trip and kayak sailed pretty much every day, had a blast. The only issue there is you can't reserve specific sites so it's the luck of the draw whether you get a lakeside site or not.
You were lucky in Sarasota bay, typically 16mph winds equate to 2-3ft washing machine chop on the bay (not fun for us with my bad back), we typically only go out in 3-7 mph winds and flat water (which is 80% of the time here)
Sorry I missed the Sailstice, all the Dolphin Island club events are a lot of fun.
FE