Tepidly Summer

Summer got better last week. The cool sixty something (°F) daytime highs were replaced with 70's°F. A full sun made it feel all the warmer. The previous cooler nights had taken their toll on the water temperature, but it was still deemed swimmable.

There was also a bit of rain last week. It wasn't enough to keep the lake level at a close to record high, but enough to replace the patchy brown from the lawns with green.

So far this Summer is on pace to produce a fine crop of acorns. The squirrels and deer will be happy.

For the second Wednesday in a row, it did not rain on the ski show.

Nor did it rain on Saturday's Independence Day parade in Crandon.

One of our favorite parade floats involved a truck, a triple rig, and a couple of rollerbladers.

The Lake Lucerne boat parade also lacked rain. The late Sunday morning event was filled with decorations and patriotic noise.

And to cap off a mostly dry week, it did not rain on Sunday night's special ski show.

The lake's temperature has begun to recover from the late ice-out and the unexpected cold of the last weekend in June. Slightly above 70°F is fine for most watersports and if you stay in too long, shivering can be a great aerobic exercise.

Diving for golf balls chipped at the raft last Fall was both refreshing and rewarding.

When the sun was out, the water didn't seem all that cold.

Late on the weekend, we tried to salvage a friend's piece of technology that flew too close to the water. After looking at the last telemetry and matching it to a topographic map of the lake, the device was estimated to be under 40 to 45 feet of lake. Hoping that our estimates were wrong by 20 feet or so, we took a paddle boat and some skin diving stuff in our first recovery attempt because of the boat's availability, but mostly because it has a ladder to make it easy to get out of the ~~ice cold~~ refreshing middle waters of Lucerne. That, plus shivering alone has not taken the winter weight off, so it was thought that maybe some paddling would help.

We had hoped that the estimate of the depth was off by 20 feet or so, but no. To get to the bottom in 45 feet of water is not practical for skin divers for a variety of reasons. The thermocline at about 20 feet makes the water above seem hot. Then there's the whole breathing thing. A SCUBA diving event is being scheduled for next week. Aside from skin diving follies, the most under reported event of last week was the lake level measurement. The lake lost 4.5 inches during the month of June. We'll need some rain to arrest this plunge, but a little bit lower lake may not be such a bad thing.

-Nemo saw the bottom, then started the long swim back to the surface and all its wonderful air.

Tepidly Summer

June 27th through July 3rd, 2022