Saturday, July 07, 2012

Evanston, July 7

Water temperature 71 or 66 or 59? The water was multilayered with different temperature water as well as flowing streams of cold water flowing in from the open lake. The top two inches was definitely 71, which is what my temperature watch recored as I swam. But it was clearly colder under the surface and each stroke went through a temperature change, and some pockets were downright frigid, I'll estimate at 59 but I do not have an accurate reading.

Jody and I swam today and in spite of the the temperature issue we had a very nice swim wall to wall. The water was smooth and clear. At the end of the swim we dropped my watch to the lake floor about 8 ft. below the surface. The watch dial shimmered which, Jody the science teacher told me, meant that there were different temperatures of water flowing over it. There was a current here and it took a little effort to remain in sight of the watch, I preferred not to lose it. So we were not as patient as we should be but we got a reading of 66, it was probably colder but still significantly cooler than the surface 71.

While we waited Jody looked for fish and found some perch. This correlates with the fishing report in the paper which reports perch near shore but the actual sport fishing was in water 150 ft deep or deeper.

Apparently while we were swimming the wind shifted and when we drank our after swim coffee the wind was clearly from the east and Evanston was very comfortable. The cool air did not get to where we live although it is about 10 degrees cooler than it has been.