If it’s 76 degrees and sunny with just a slight breeze on a Sunday in August you can bet there will be heavy boat traffic at the northern end of Skaneateles Lake, with up to seventy or more boats crowded into Sandy Bay, just south of the Skaneateles Country Club. Wave runners zipping in to jump over the wakes created by boats towing two or three kids around on a tube. A fleet of sailboats making their way around a course marked with oversize inflatable orange buoys, clinging to that slight breeze. The pontoon boats steadily lumbering up the lake past the fishermen in their Boston Whalers.
But if it’s 76 degrees and sunny with just a slight breeze on a Sunday in September the boat traffic was limited to my dad and I in our kayaks fishing off the point, a couple in a green canoe and two other boats on lazy cruises.
It was a good reminder that there’s a precious window at the end of the season when the tourists and summer crowds have mostly gone and we get the lake back for a few days. It’s a special time.
Paul's letters... 