The water in LaCloche lake is never really warm — it freezes over in the winter and it doesn’t get that warm in the summer. This year has been unusually cool, so that water was a bit cooler than normal. My relatives who had been up earlier in the summer said they used wet suits whenever they went in the water. We didn’t let the cold water stop us from having some fun. We did some swimming, tubing and water skiing in the water.
The first time we got in the water was swimming off of the boat back in spring bay. (It’s called spring bay because it’s where the natural spring is, where we used to get our drinking water). I initially got in without my life jacket, but then got back in the boat for my life jacket. Life jackets are nice in the water because it ads a bit of padding, and helps keep you warmer in the water. They also help you stay afloat if you’re lazy and don’t want to tread water. Ross was surprsied the difference in buoyancy between fresh water and the salt water he’s used to in Hawaii.
The boys went out tubing a few times during the week. They had gotten a new inner tube with a flat top which allowed 2 people to lie across the tube and ride at the same time. Ross joined them their first time out – and according to Alex “he flew 10 feet in the air!”. I wasn’t feeling great, so didn’t join them on that outing. The boys certainly look like they had fun.
Another popular water activity on the lake is water skiing. Aunt Carla loves skiing and looks quite graceful up on her single ski. Getting up on skiis is not very easy, and usually takes many tries. When I ski, I’m not nearly as graceful as Aunt Carla. I just get up, and then hang on for dear life — and am proud of myself for getting up. For some reason the boys were not interested in learning how to ski — oh well. Ross, however, decided he would give it a try — even though he had a cold and wasn’t feeling 100%. Ross hung in there, and after many tries got up on the skiis! Unfortunately, I was too slow to get a picture of him up on the skiis. Apparently we did a good job of telling him how to get up, but forgot to tell him what to do once he was up — so he fell down. I was pretty impressed he got up on his first time out!
In addition to swimming off the boat and the dock, we also went swimming off submarine rock. Submarine rock is a small island in the lake the kind of resembles a sumbarine coming out the water. The front of the island has relatively smooth rocky front that drops off into the water. We also read and sunned ourselves on the rock after getting out of the water. All of the boys were into their books, so we got a few minutes of silence — which was really nice.
