Evanston, July 21
I have been gone for a week and was impatient about getting back in the lake. But yesterday it thundered all morning. In the afternoon I checked the NOAA web site and it predicted big north-northeast winds this morning focusing all the waves in the lake on our little beach, 4 to 6 feet. So reluctantly I called Mike and suggested we wait until Saturday which looked better, but still not good.
So I went to the pool for the 6AM swim. There was little wind and partly sunny skies, it looked like a beach day. So I only swam a warmup, came home and called Mike and said we gotta get to the beach. He agreed. And I was right, the waves were only of the 1 to 2 foot variety. They were disorganized wind waves, not nice swimming waves, and Mike thinks today was harder than July 4, but I didn't think they were so bad. We didn't even get much of a push on the way back. Water is now 72.
We planned to have a quick cup of coffee and head back but the sun came out, sort of. So we went on the beach and it was fairly pleasant. We noticed someone swimming by the bouys doing a side stroke, it looked like one of the regulars but when we looked again a short time later he had disappeared. He certainly had not gotten out of the water. I decided we better investigate and so I first went to check out the most benign possibility, that he swam around the wall. That turned out to be correct, he was part swimming, part walking towards Chicago. But he had a long way to go for someone of his swimming ability so I watched from the wall and Mike came and joined me. About 200 yards down he headed towards the rocks and small illegal beach and got out of the water. Mike noticed he did not seem to have a suit on, on further inspection I agreed he was completely nude. After walking down the beach a bit he found his clothes in the rocks so we went back to our chairs, excitement over.
We waited until the guards came out to see if they would "open the water". They did so we went in and tried to ride some waves, but they were too small both vertically and horizontally so it was hopeless.
So I went to the pool for the 6AM swim. There was little wind and partly sunny skies, it looked like a beach day. So I only swam a warmup, came home and called Mike and said we gotta get to the beach. He agreed. And I was right, the waves were only of the 1 to 2 foot variety. They were disorganized wind waves, not nice swimming waves, and Mike thinks today was harder than July 4, but I didn't think they were so bad. We didn't even get much of a push on the way back. Water is now 72.
We planned to have a quick cup of coffee and head back but the sun came out, sort of. So we went on the beach and it was fairly pleasant. We noticed someone swimming by the bouys doing a side stroke, it looked like one of the regulars but when we looked again a short time later he had disappeared. He certainly had not gotten out of the water. I decided we better investigate and so I first went to check out the most benign possibility, that he swam around the wall. That turned out to be correct, he was part swimming, part walking towards Chicago. But he had a long way to go for someone of his swimming ability so I watched from the wall and Mike came and joined me. About 200 yards down he headed towards the rocks and small illegal beach and got out of the water. Mike noticed he did not seem to have a suit on, on further inspection I agreed he was completely nude. After walking down the beach a bit he found his clothes in the rocks so we went back to our chairs, excitement over.
We waited until the guards came out to see if they would "open the water". They did so we went in and tried to ride some waves, but they were too small both vertically and horizontally so it was hopeless.
posted by Barry at 1:46 PM
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