Evanston, August 22

Ever wonder what the ocean would be like if there were no salt? We found out this morning at our Evanston beach. When we arrived there were 3 foot swells with a long wave length, only a little chop and short length wave action. So it looked sort of rough but was actually easy to swim in. A very comfortable 71 degrees. A saltless ocean.

I've been away on a short vacation bringing home, as a souvenir, the Norwalk flu. So I am finally back in the water after a week and in the Lake for the first time in two weeks. Jody is also back in town after a long vacation but she, at least, had swimming opportunities. Our summer pool is being torn down to be replaced next year by an inferior one and our alternate, which I actually like, is too small for the number of displaced swimmers. So when Jody emailed me that she was available to Lake swim this morning I jumped at the chance, especially as only light winds were expected. But there were storms in the area so I qualified my acceptance pending looking at the actual morning weather. Come morning it looked like we would be dry for the next few hours so off we went. And we were glad we came.