Published June 26, 2005

For more than a decade Jim and Stephanie Carpenter have submersed themselves in the Klamath Basin's often contentious water-related issues.

Now, after a "decade of dialogue in search of solutions," they're taking a new approach. Instead of attending endless meetings, workshops and conferences to try something different, the Carpenters are trying their own version of a B&B.

B&B usually refers to bed and breakfast, but not for the Carpenters.

Their new venture is B&B Birding and Boating, which offers sailboat rides on Upper Klamath Lake to search for eagles, osprey, pelicans, grebes, ducks and other waterfowl.

"We thought, why not take the two best attributes of the Basin and put them into a business," Jim Carpenter said.

Upper Klamath Lake, he explains, is rated one of the 10 best sailing lakes in North American by Sailing magazine. And the Klamath Basin topped the list in Sunset magazine's list of 10 best birding locations.

They're offering four-hour-long Early Bird specials, with a dockside gourmet picnic, for $99 per person, and available for overnight trips or whatever people might want to arrange.

"We're open to anything," said Jim.

The Carpenters are intimately familiar with Upper Klamath Lake and the region's sailing community. They jointly served as commodores for the Klamath Yacht Club in 2000, and are long-time regulars in the club's Wednesday night races and other events held on the lake.If that all sounds philosophical, the Carpenters' intent reveals itself during a lake sail.
 

A year ago, they bought the "Windhorse," a Hunter 25 sailboat with auxiliary power, in anticipation of launching their business. The 25-foot long sloop can carry four passengers and sleep two comfortably, or "four very close friends."

Sailing has long been part of Jim's life. As a 12-year-old, he attended a summer camp on Lake Michigan and took a sailing class.

"I was just fascinated. I couldn't believe you could go anywhere you wanted with just the wind to power you," he recalls with a lingering sense of gee-whiz. He later sailed from New York to Miami, "So it's in my blood."

He and Stephanie moved to Klamath Falls nearly 15 years ago. Sailing is one of the reasons they've stayed - "I never knew you could have sailing like this in the mountains."

The Carpenters view their B&B as nature-based recreation and themselves as "guides to the ecosystem," with their focus being Upper Klamath Lake.

They describe their tours as "experiential connections with our natural resources."

If that all sounds philosophical, the Carpenters' intent reveals itself during a lake sail.

On a breezy afternoon, Carpenter guided "Windhorse" along Upper Klamath's western shore past the Running Y Ranch Resort before a lazy sail around Buck Island. With a backing wind, he cruised past Cove Point and Sunset Beach before tacking across to the Stone House near McCornack Point, then flew on the water to the dock at their lakefront home-business.

"Eagles and ospreys have been locally real active," Carpenter said before setting out. "Right now, the most fascinating birds are the grebes. I'd never seen them doing their courting dance on the water, and I didn't know they ferried their babies on the backs."

During the four-hour tour, bird sightings included a lone bald eagle perched high atop a Buck Island snag, gangs of swallows that teasingly dipped and darted around the Windhorse's sails, night herons that stood as still as statues in the lakeside shadows, soaring turkey vultures searching for carrion, and, everywhere, grebes doing their jittery dances and, just as Carpenter said, cruising with babies on board.

There were views of Mount Shasta, visible like a vanilla pyramid through an opening in the nearer mountains, and Buck Island's thickets of white oaks. Unseen but heard was the cacophony of song birds chirping, peeping, tweeting and calling, and the accelerating hmmmm as the wind filled the Windhorse's sails.

"What we hope to do," Carpenter later explained from a dockside table, "is provide a broad-based ecosystem approach to the Klamath Basin through naturebased recreation. We want people to appreciate the resource that is here. You get out there and it's so quiet and peaceful. We think Bobby Dylan had it right: the answer is blowing in the wind."