Winnipesaukee: The Tacky, the Funky, and the Sublime

The Lady Friend and I spent the last week up at Lake Winnipesaukee, a large (200 miles of shoreline) lake in southern New Hampshire. We stayed not far from Weirs Beach in Laconia, which only two weeks ago had been the destination of some 400,000 motorcycle enthusiasts. Just about all of the bikers had gone, leaving the skee-ball arcades, T-shirt shops, and hot dog stands of The Weirs behind. The beach, surprisingly small by ocean beach standards, was returned to locals and families of tourists eager to sluice aware the cares of city life in the clear, inviting waters.
One of the things you can do in The Weirs is to take the Mount Washington to the gracious resort town of Wolfeborough (on Wednesdays) or the village of Alton Bay (on Thursdays). This photograph, showing the ship returning to Weirs, was taken knee-deep in the water at Weirs Beach.

We made two trips to the north side of the lake to visit friends who were staying at the elegant Bald Peak Country Club in Moultonborough. Here, spacious lawns and copses of trees rise above Moultonborough Bay, and beyond, the impressive expanse of Winnipesaukee. We enjoyed the sumptuous buffet on the club lawn on the first evening, and on the second, visited the justly famous Woodshed Restaurant.

We became aficionadoes of the Naswa Resort, purportedly one of the most popular boating destinations in the country. The Naswa occupies a strip of beach along Paugus Bay across the bridge from the Weirs. If you close your eyes at the Naswa Beach Bar, you may think you have been been somehow transported to Jamaica, as several of the bartenders are Jamaican, and reggae is the music of choice.
The Naswa's funky little beach bar serves to boaters and beachgoers a little slice of Jamaica in New Hampshire. The waitresses, obviously concerned about the memories of their more senior male customers, helpfully wear the name of the resort where it can be easily observed.

I don't know many better ways to wile away a sunny afternoon than to sip a rumrunner at the Naswa and watch the activity on the beach and on the dock while listening to the music of the Wailers or the May-tals. The Nazbar may even challenge the Palm Pavilion as my favorite place to do nothing of consequence, a pursuit to which I devote myself more fervently with each passing year.
The Naswa has a full-service marina, and we watched in some amusement as weekend captains attempted to guide their balky craft into the slips. As one of the bartenders said, "Hey, mon--you don't have to know how to run a boat to buy one."