Last swim: Friday, 5:30 & 6pm
Water temp: 45 by one measure, 47 by another
Water quality: clear
Waves: small swells out of the south
Kru: Patriarch, Mr Anonymous, Handyman Hank and Itch on the early shift, Reed and Magic Mike on the 6pm shift
There is something particularly cruel about the lake being this cold when the weather is this hot. My reaction, beyond all logic, is to get angry. Eventually, I get over myself and try and do something about the situation. Today it was to committ to getting into the water, no matter how cold.
At a little before six, I ran into Patriarch, Itch, Mr A. and Hank shivering their way back up the bluff path—all with smiles on their faces. Reed came down the bluff as we chatted. We talked about the fact that there was warm(er) water out there, just not along our section of the western shore of the lake. A boat would’ve been nice. Itch made some crack about my fancy North Shore boating friends. So I made a call. And they showed!
We motored out a mile or so to the 70 degree waters. Someone mixed a batch of margaritas. We cranked up the reggae-ton. Much drunken frivolity ensued: deck chairs, dancing, dips in the water. It was the perfect Friday evening’s entertainment. And then Itch’s dream sequence ended, and I was sitting on a log squeezing into every bit of neoprene in my bag.
Not Reed. He had jumped right in (skin!), swam south for a bit and back in toward the rocks. He returned a little redder, a little happier, and a lot cooler. I finally got in and swam south for a bit myself. As I dried off, I noticed that the busy beach full of screaming joyous kids was emptying out and that there was a cooling puff of air off the weater. I sat back down on my log and enjoyed a moment before climbing back up into the heat of the day.
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