I promise this is not a thread about watching for debris! There will be enough of those coming up in the upcoming days!
This is to caution all boaters who are thinking about venturing out this weekend in their boats...
I watched from my deck in Gilford last night and this morning, massive amounts of both large and small ice chunks floating by in and around the broads all being blown in from the still frozen areas of the northern sections of the lake.
While this is obviously normal during ice out, what is not normal is the thickness of this ice! With the wind tearing up the lake as quickly as it did, the floating ice is still very unusually thick for ice out time. I stopped by the Glendale docks and physically took one of these ice chunks out of the water to measure the thickness and it measured 8 1/2" thick and it is solid!!
There is still a lot of ice in the northern section of the lake and most of that will get blown south. If you hit any of these chunks large or small with your boat you will be in trouble.
Go slow, be on the lookout and be safe.
Safe ventures to all!
Dan