Sunday, February 8, 2009

The Thaw

Wow, it always amazes me how 50 degrees makes me feel, after a long winter up here.
We were walking around in just a fleece, or sweatshirt, and stomping through wet snow to get to the boat. The sun could have come out from behind the clouds, but it was great anyway. The boat has rather large clumps of snow and ice all over the cover. Some of it I knocked off, but the rest of it will have to wait. One jack stand was not even touching the hull. Yikes!I should check on her more often. I went to Webster Park for a few shots of the lake. The temperature was about 38, but the wind chill drove me right out of there. The first photo is a shot of a mini whirlpool, formed from Mill Creek entering Lake Ontario. The water was swirling and pushing out under the ice to the lake. Hate to fall into that! All around me was wet ice, one slip and Deb gets a lot of insurance money. :0 Sodus Bay was still frozen solid. Looks like a long time until we get our boats in the water, but it's amazing how fast it melts with a few warm days. I have a lot of projects lined up, and I have to get moving or it will be long nights in the boat yard until launch. Some of my yard neighbors are more hardy than I, as they have been working away these many weekends. Must have very good heaters in there. I'm not that hardy.
The number of ice fishermen on the bay was incredible. I've never seen so many. I tried to get a picture of them, but there was no place to park! Deb didn't want to stroll across the ice, thinking it wasn't safe on a 50 degree day. Nonsense, you know how thick that ice is!