Evanston, August 19

Today Jody and I went to Evanston, my first visit there this summer. No real changes although at 6:30 parking was still tough. The Lake level seems the same but there is a lot of new sand and water depths seem shallower, for example the marked swim area is now only waist deep everywhere. Conditions were ideal. The water temperature was 68.7 and, unlike last week at Ohio St fairly consistent throughout the swim and also by depth. The water was flat by the beach but 1 foot waves by the far wall. There was no obvious wind but apparently there had been some from the south east recently. It was sunny and the water was clear. We did the wall-to-wall swim and felt great. Once again we were reminded why open water swimming is so much superior to a pool and why Evanston is, when conditions are right, so much superior to Ohio St.

I do have a new temperature watch, a Casio fishing gear, Timex no longer supports the reef gear. It seems that I am getting comparable temperatures on the new watch but I can now report to the tenth of a degree, which probably is not meaningful, except that, for example, today's reading of 68.7 means that we actually saw temperatures of 68 and 69 at various times. An added feature is that the watch beeps when it thinks it is an ideal time to go fishing. I don't fish, but I can daydream about what it would be like fishing on the Lake instead of doing whatever it is that I am doing.