Waves as Darkness Approaches

I could tell, on my way to my choir concert yesterday afternoon, that the waves were big on Lake Superior.  There was an East wind rattling everything, including the windows of the old cathedral downtown, and there were large whitecaps visible down on the water from the top of the hill.  When I got home from the concert, we bundled everyone up from head to toe,  strapped on our ice spikes, and off to the beach we went to check out the water before the sun set.   The temperature was in the 20’s, so it wasn’t that terribly cold except for the wind, but what a wind!  It was gusting to 60 mph!  It was the kind of wind that makes you feel disoriented, and if you stand on flat ice without spikes, it will just blow you right across the ground.  I watched this happening to other people.  It reminded me of a cartoon.  The wind was actually picking up water vapor from the giant waves, freezing it in midair and pelting it at the shore.  By the end of our visit, our clothes were actually covered with thin layers of ice and we crunched whenever we moved.

Some of us crunched more than others, of course, because Dr. Peds could not resist getting up close and personal with the waves, sitting on a big ice chunk right out of their reach, most of the time. Occasionally a wave would sneak up on him and get his feet, and almost always the spray from the waves would cover him.  He just sat there, cup of coffee in hand.  Sometimes Mr. SP would join him for a bit, without coffee.

I had to stop taking pictures after a bit because the ice coated my camera and it needed to thaw out.

We all had a wonderful time, peering out from our hoods gathered up tight over our faces to protect from the ice spray.  Squirmy got tired of waiting in the car, though, so when it began to get dark, we left.

The waves were the biggest that I had ever seen them, but not as big as they can get.  They were ranging from 9-11 feet yesterday.  I had hoped they would be pushing big chunks of ice around, but the waters were mostly clear and open yesterday.