I'm thinking we are into winter a bit early this year. I talked in an earlier post about sliding across the ice--but not so soon! We are now back to open water with an air temp of 46 degrees. Earlier today I was banging through the ice with the kayak--it takes a bit of coordination and I found myself struggling to relearn all the winter moves. We use collapsed ski poles with sharpened points to take on the ice. With the present thickness, it holds long enough for the kayak to move on top--and then it collapses under the weight. One struggles to move a boat length at a time onto the ice--always taking care to not get caught leaning when the ice suddenly collapses under a ski pole. The fun begins when you reach theopposite shore and try to get out of the thing without rolling over! Oh well, at the present time we are back to the rowboat. I found the ice to be both beautiful and brittle. It was around a half inch thick with the clarity of glass. It wasn't as strong as ice in prior years--which had a darker quality to the color.
