A REALLY COOL CRUISE

LEAVING BAYFIELD...

CAPTAIN EDWARDS AT THE HELM...

NAVIGATING THE ICE FLOWS,,,

...AND OCCASIONAL ICE BERG

RASPBERRY ISLAND LIGHTHOUSE

Friday, 8:00 AM.  49 degrees F at the ferry dock, much colder on the back porch.  Wind westerly, light.  The sky is mostly clear with a few wispy high-altitude clouds. The humidity is 88% and the barometer remains steady, at 30.19".  It looks like a repeat of yesterday's weather.
   I breathed a sigh of relief as the last of Bayfield's new street trees were planted yesterday afternoon.  The oaks were still dormant but the little-leaf lindens, the flowering crab trees, the mountain ash all were leafing out and needed to get into the ground and be watered in.  The weather has stayed cool, so all the trees should transplant well.
   Last evening Joan and I had the opportunity to get out on the water.  The Chamber of Commerce "After Hours" get-away for members was hosted by the Apostle Islands Cruise Service, with Bayfied's newest restaurant, The Fat Radish, providing  food and All Sister's Winery serving its apple wine.  It was a fine outing, the food and drink excellent and the cruise flawless.
   The evening was chilly but the sailing smooth.  Our neighbor, Captain Sherman Edwards, was both pilot and tour guide.  It was the first time we had sailed on the new glass-bottom tour boat,  a smooth, powerful, relatively quiet ship.
   We got up close and personal with a few remnant ice bergs, just for fun.  There weren't many between Bayfield and the Raspberry Island lighthouse, our destination, but had we travelled south from port rather than north we would have encountered a lot of them, and the trip might have been uncomfortably reminiscent of that of the Titanic.  The presence of the ice all depends upon the direction of the wind and currants.  The icepack is still thick out in the open lake and will be there for some time to come, as the water temperature is only thirty-six degrees F in most locations.  It was, as they say, a really cool cruise.