Sunday Sessions

[jgordon]

Great day today at Seneca with Rx Bob, Brad, Cardiac Marc, Kiter Doug, and Andrew all enjoying the warm snap on medium kites. Any head plunges made for an instant ice cream headache though! Saw a lone windsurfer (Bill?) pulling in as I was packing up around two.

Also, in case you saw it on the news, there was an ice session gone awry at Long Pond today with three kiters ending up in the water. I spoke with one kiter who was involved and all parties are ok. Though one guy went to hospital for hypothermia as he was in the water for a half hour before rescuers could get to him!

Sounds like the ice was 4-5 inches thick but had become rotten and honeycombed from below.

Beware: even if it seems thick enough, old ice is more fragile due to the freeze/thaw aging process.

[skymongrel]

It's great you all got out Sunday. I couldn't make up my mind on what to do...first I went down to the bay to check ice for ice fishing (haven't been locally all year) and they're were a handful out in the middle with open water rapidly approaching from the south. Then I thought I'd go wind surfing but my stuff is under lots of other stuff in the shed. Then I thought I'd go canoeing in Irondequoit Creek but the kids thought they wanted to geocache...then they changed their minds. So I ended up putting oil in the car and starring out the window!

I had the iceboat out on Lond Pond and Cranberry Pond earlier this winter (3 weeks ago). The local iceboaters (these are DN iceboats) on Cranberry comment about gas pockets that open up holes or create weak spots in the ice. We sailed around a big one almost a month ago there. This incident is an eye opener as I would have thought going through at Long Pond in shallow water would be easy to escape from. Glad everyone is ok.

[Windydoug]

Excellent source here for everything ice: lakeice.squarespace.com

Also, a homemade pair of ice claws are a must in my opinion. Made a pair a couple years back, and have not had to use them, but wear em over my shoulder. I had also thought to buy and ice pick/hammer and attack a long length of rope to it for rescuing others.

Be safe out there.

I believe you were right on about Bill getting in some early jibe practice at Seneca.

Wd