Lake update
Jun. 21st, 2025 10:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nosrednaydujIt's summer! Officially, even, being the solstice and all.
The lake is lovely, I didn't measure it with a thermometer, but I measured it with my body, and I would say it was 78 today and 77 yesterday. Unfortunately, after it's 95 on Monday and 100 on Tuesday, the lake may get annoyingly warm.
The boat is working, because we replaced the propeller and it now works great. I have skied many times now, and obviously no more wetsuits are required. The lake got up to 75 a couple weeks ago, so I skied with no wetsuit, and then it was cold and rainy and it dropped to 71, and that time I did use a wetsuit. It's completely optional, but there would've been a lot more yelling about the cold had I not used it.
The dock is completely in. The power boat was too close to it. It is unclear whether heavy winds yesterday actually caused the anchor to drag, or if it just was too close after we put in the rest of the dock (making the dock bigger). I think it was dragging. I got my mask and snorkel out and went for a swim and hauled the anchor block about 20 feet away. If it was dragging, that is a sad too bad, because it means that we have to be worried if it's going to be windy all night or something. I don't really want to go swimming at night. And what if we are away for several days? We have a new anchor, which is an upside-down pyramid shape that is supposed to be good, because it lies on one side and then when the wind moves it lies on the other side and the edge of the pyramid is supposed to dig in to prevent dragging.
Previously we had a mushroom anchor, which is supposed to dig in even better, but does not do well with the wind changing directions and undoing the "digging". We got rid of the mushroom because 30 years of rusting had made the place you stick the shackle thin enough to likely break in a big storm. It had originally been a 100-pound anchor; I brought the scale down and weighed it, and it was 75 pounds in the end, so 25% of it rusted away. With the shackle place being the thinnest and also most likely to have the rust knocked off and more rust happen, so it would be easy most rapidly degrading area. (It was alarmingly thin.) Anyway, it's possible that the mushroom shape does superior digging in, even in the sandy soil we have at the bottom of the lake. They are designed for mud where they really dig in. Anyway, we are concerned. Maybe we will try to find something colorful and heavy that we can embed in the lake bottom so we can compare and see whether it actually is moving in the next windstorm.
Anyway, while I was wet anyway yesterday after noticing the boat gently hitting the dock (no damage to either), I took my first windsurf ride of the season. Windsurfing is a pain, because there's so much set up. Of course I was already tired from hauling the anchor around, and I don't do it often enough to be good at the set up so things went wrong and had to be fixed etc. But I did get a couple of good runs in before I was blown downwind and had to walk back a quarter mile in 3-4 feet of water towing the windsurfer. That also took a long time. But, I was well-exercised!
The lake is lovely, I didn't measure it with a thermometer, but I measured it with my body, and I would say it was 78 today and 77 yesterday. Unfortunately, after it's 95 on Monday and 100 on Tuesday, the lake may get annoyingly warm.
The boat is working, because we replaced the propeller and it now works great. I have skied many times now, and obviously no more wetsuits are required. The lake got up to 75 a couple weeks ago, so I skied with no wetsuit, and then it was cold and rainy and it dropped to 71, and that time I did use a wetsuit. It's completely optional, but there would've been a lot more yelling about the cold had I not used it.
The dock is completely in. The power boat was too close to it. It is unclear whether heavy winds yesterday actually caused the anchor to drag, or if it just was too close after we put in the rest of the dock (making the dock bigger). I think it was dragging. I got my mask and snorkel out and went for a swim and hauled the anchor block about 20 feet away. If it was dragging, that is a sad too bad, because it means that we have to be worried if it's going to be windy all night or something. I don't really want to go swimming at night. And what if we are away for several days? We have a new anchor, which is an upside-down pyramid shape that is supposed to be good, because it lies on one side and then when the wind moves it lies on the other side and the edge of the pyramid is supposed to dig in to prevent dragging.
Previously we had a mushroom anchor, which is supposed to dig in even better, but does not do well with the wind changing directions and undoing the "digging". We got rid of the mushroom because 30 years of rusting had made the place you stick the shackle thin enough to likely break in a big storm. It had originally been a 100-pound anchor; I brought the scale down and weighed it, and it was 75 pounds in the end, so 25% of it rusted away. With the shackle place being the thinnest and also most likely to have the rust knocked off and more rust happen, so it would be easy most rapidly degrading area. (It was alarmingly thin.) Anyway, it's possible that the mushroom shape does superior digging in, even in the sandy soil we have at the bottom of the lake. They are designed for mud where they really dig in. Anyway, we are concerned. Maybe we will try to find something colorful and heavy that we can embed in the lake bottom so we can compare and see whether it actually is moving in the next windstorm.
Anyway, while I was wet anyway yesterday after noticing the boat gently hitting the dock (no damage to either), I took my first windsurf ride of the season. Windsurfing is a pain, because there's so much set up. Of course I was already tired from hauling the anchor around, and I don't do it often enough to be good at the set up so things went wrong and had to be fixed etc. But I did get a couple of good runs in before I was blown downwind and had to walk back a quarter mile in 3-4 feet of water towing the windsurfer. That also took a long time. But, I was well-exercised!
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