snork 2.5

snork 2.5: solo trip-o

went solo on a snork journey today.
took my gear on down to waverly park.
it's pretty damn tiny.
but i wanted to go on the off chance that my dad's glasses might still be there after 10 or so years. i didn't realize it had been that long til i started now thinking about it.
as you might guess, they weren't there.

the park itself has a dock that has a loop and a projection that goes out a bit further on the south end. inside the loop is the designated swimming area.
fuck that. i'm not about to go into the lake to be caged in.
but on all of the area outside that puny kid's area, there's "NO SWIMMING" painted on the dock.
undeterred by this i plop down by one of the ladders outside the area and don my fins.
as i'm doing this, i recognize a familiar boat.
one with "SHERIFF" written in large letters on the side.
although i'm nowhere near 50 feet away from the dock if i splash down right next to it, i'm still a bit leary about last week and another possible encounter with the law.
so i sit there and wait as they patrol by.
float, float, float. i know you can go faster than that.

eventually they were within an acceptable distance and i splash down into the 68 degree water.
still a bit chilly, but much more managable than that 62 and 65 from the previous weeks respectively.

the water was much more clear than last week. i could easily see the bottom.
however there was a warning sign cautioning the eating of fish. they're most likely contaminated, it says. awesome.

so i check out around the dock. nothing really at all.
a crapload of tiny clams. each only about an inch long. nothing like the monsters at the top of the lake.
there weren't even that many beer/coke bottles/cans around. maybe they clean up there.

got bored and went north through a shitload of milfoil (manuel says that's the name of all that seaweed shit).
that shit gets about 8 - 10 feet tall at most. and at 15 feet deep, they stop growing and the lakebottom went steeply sloping downward.
saw a few larger fish chilling there. i chased them a bit, but they're too deep to have any fun with them.

further back inland, where the weeds were less dense, there were more dead fish.
they ranged from a couple of inches to about 5 inches.
one of the 5-inchers looked a little too shiny to be dead to me.
his eyes were still intact and that mucusy slim had yet to grow on it.
but this guy was just laying on his side. unmoving.
i waved my hand over the fish to disrupt the water around it.
my movement caused the fish to stir.
it seemed a bit groggy and not too wary of my presence.
so i reached my hand out and pet its side. very bony.
it wriggled on maybe 10 or 15 feet and returned to its halibut-like state.
but this was no halibut.
looking online, it seems to most resemble yellow perch.
it had those bright orange fins.
i thought that maybe it was only this one guy that was retarded, but about 15 minutes of swimming northward revealed another fish of the same species doing the same exact thing.
catching some Z's or playing dead.
not sure which. although i can't imagine what kind of predators it might have under there. maybe i don't want to know.
very peculiar. and it only cares enough to get away from you so it doesn't get prodded again.

i passed maybe 4 private piers and only one of them really had a bunch of bud and coke cans.
there were tires and wood planks too.
between two of them i found a red and white bobber.
attached to it was lure. no hook.
it was stuck in the sand with the bobber floating about 3 feet up from the bottom and maybe another 8 to the surface.
i gave it a good tug and it popped out. maybe the hook stayed stuck under the sand. fine by me, i wouldn't want to fuck with that anyway.

OH! and always, i'm 3 for 3 now this year, i found a golf ball. this fucker was in the middle of nowhere. i really don't know how they get out there.
ok. i do (i've seen seinfeld), but they're still so random.
later on i thought i found more golfballs, but they were both actually birds eggs.
maybe a quarter of the size of normal chicken's eggs and a bit more leathery.
probably due to the amount of time spent under water.
they were pretty much fucked, so i tossed one against a pier. same kinda orange shit as the one manuel broke at madison.
i bet the seagulls and crows hanging around will love to clean that up.

so. with nothing really exciting, and being in for just about a half hour, i decided to head back.
nothing exciting on the way back until i got the the last private pier just before the public one at the park.
i went out beyond the milfoil and found a metal folding chair.
at the time i didn't have the balls to huck it up onto the pier because of last week and also the fact that i saw movers moving into that house when i rolled up (that house and waverly park share the same parking lot).
so the pier had two projections on its piling that perfectly held the chair.
even with the massive wave action of passing speedboats, it held on.
ok. not so daring.
i was heading back to the waverly dock when i happened to come upon a trash can! now that's something to show off.
the fucker was heavy.
it was one of those oscar the grouch styled ones.
it was green on the exposed side, and still metallically shiny on the other.
with some help of the wakes created by passing speedboats i was able to hurl the trashcan up on their pier. right-side-up.
eat that!

i quickly booked.
as i approached the pier. maybe 50 feet out, i saw something was up.
crap.
there were three men chilling at the farthest extent of the pier in blue dress that seemed somewhat professional/authoritative. one of them even had a lifeguard rescue tube.
crap!
so i ducked down and swam to the dock all the way underwater.
good thing i practice that shit at the pool.
and i'll tell you it's a lot easier with fins on.

i came up under the dock. there was little room to spare.
i maybe had a foot between my head and the bottom of the pier.
the motorboats were still doing their thing and the water was really choppy.
i was kinda scared of getting tossed against the top, but it didn't happen.
however. when i'd go under the support beams, i kept hitting my snorkel.
i kept my hand above my head to cushion it if i was to hit it.
i kept a good distance, so i was safe.

i popped out in that enclosed swimming area and swam to standable depths.
after getting off my fins, i turn around to see an ambulence parked illegally at the mouth of the parking lot.

what the hell's going on?

i throw my shit into my car to be a bit more conspicuous and i go back out on the pier. another aid-car is parked below a "no parking anytime" sign near the house where i left oscar's home.

i went back out to the dock where i noticed the three guys i had seen before.
they all were watching with folded arms and walkie-talkies as this motorboat was hauling something behind it.

for a second i got a glimpse of what they were towing: a roughly 8-foot sailboat that had capsized. it was turned over for an instance but must have still been waterlogged and couldn't keep it's bouyancy and once again floundered.

i almost went up to the medic guys to see if i could offer my services, but i was kinda cold by that time.
eventually that same sheriff boat trolled up and offered assistance.
i never saw if they righted the boat.
but i'm sure the sheriff would know what to do.

and thus ended snork 2.5.
i'll save snork 3 for manuel's return.
i did have bottle wars with myself out there.
it was awesome cuz i won every time, but yet lacking the appeal.

stats:
max depth dived: 15 feet.
ave. depth dived: 10 feet.
temp: 68 degrees.
dive time: 1 hour.

i think next week, if i got time, we're going to go back to leschi.
we went here last year.
it was the time where we met this black dude fishing off one of the piers.
however, his fishing pole had no line.
we found a fishing pole WITH line and gladly gave it to the guy.
he seemed greatful. along with the beach chair and bike.
i kept the fillet knife.

til then...