↑renovatio06's blog

Last steps and status on my little initiative on behalf of Jens Soering.

Glass Pane

I must have been skating some thirty years now, not every winter, but in total. I have never been careless or unattentive. I wouldn't skate when nobody else did. In short: I wouldn't test my luck. Neither have I today. Since the ice of our little lake here in Wessling got messed up with warm weather yesterday, I checked the webcam for people skating on Woerthsee - and to my greatest joy they did! Plus, the surface looked really even and great. And in addition: It was a misty-foggy day today, perfectly matching my mood and making for some mysterious, glazed frosted scenery - excellent!

Although having been "in the funk" to some extent over the past few days, the gliding, the fresh air, the scenery made me forget all that as soon as I felt the the rhythm of my own skating strides. I got almost inebriated with joy and started to look forward to at least an hour on the ice, possibly more.

At the far end, I ran into someone, I had been in a web-programming class with a few years ago and so we had a little, nice chat. But I didn't want to get cold, so I continued my first lap around the lake, intending to make a full round, have a cup of tea I had brought and then head on to the second round.

About half-way into the "home-stretch" a female person walks her kid onto the ice from the bank. While I'm approaching with long, measured strides, she calls at me "There's quite a cracking noise going out there". I turn around and mean to reassure her that everything's fine, when I hear a sharp cracking noise myself - but it's too late already! I can see the ice breaking beneath my left foot and the next thing I know is the sensation of ice-cold water in my skating boot. Then I lose my balance and fall, anticipating to feel that same sensation of cold water on my chest and then the rest of my body. But I'm lucky: The ice doesn't break any further and I get to make it to the bank, where I take my boot off to assess, how much water has come in. The shere surprise that this had actually happened outweighed potential shock by far - I couldn't believe it! I had just looked away for an instant, because she had been addressing me - and that's when I must have overlooked that thin layer I had approached. arrgggh!

 

Like I said before, I wouldn't consider myself careless, and so to actually dip my toe and breaking in made me angry more than it shocked me. Of course, I was being very careful and didn't take any chances any more. Since my socks and underwear had remained considerably dry and wasn't all soaked from the fall, I decided to just put my boot back on and take the same way back that I had come. And also: Isn't there an expression, which says you have to sit in the saddle again right after having fallen? Exactly.

And guess what? I'll be back tomorrow, if temperatures hold.

Nothing wrong?

Skate Sailer

Today was an exceptionally bright and clear day with sunny skies and the so-called Foehn wind wheather phenomenon, which made for temperatures around 7° Celsius (44F). As announced in my previous post, I went back to Woerthsee to go skating some more. Of course, I was going to be careful and stayed clear of the area, where I had dipped my toe the day before. As a result of the Foehn condition, there were high winds across the lake, so some skate-sailers had come out and enjoyed sunny skies and high speeds from the wind blowing across the lake. It was awesome!

Hard to resist

I headed into the direction of the far end, as I came across a little gathering of people. I turned to look and assumed them to be drinking hot wine together or having a chat or something, when I suddenly noticed something odd about this scene: A sail from one of the skaters was to be seen between them and overlooking them at an awkward angle. I skated a little closer in order to check out, what was going on, when one person broke away from the small crowd and starting running towards the bank. I turned my head the other way and now noticed, what I had been overlooking in the blazing sunlight: A firetruck, a police-car and an ambulance were parked at the bank, with the signal going. The lady started yelling at them and pointing towards the crowd in the middle of the lake. "He's there, he's been in there for a while - are you listening?!"

Police Helicopter

Broken...

Shoot - the guy had broken into the ice with his skateboard, sail and all. Since help was there, I continued on to make my lapse, trying to get out of their way. Like yesterday, I stayed close to the bank, in the shallower areas, which - with one exception - had proven to be safe. I made it about two thirds of the way to the far end, when I notice two skaters in the middle of the lake, between two large areas of open water. They were too far out to be warning them by shouting and while I was thinking, what I could do, I noticed a police helicopter approaching very fast. They came very close to those two skaters and only about 8 feet above the surface. "Attention! This is the police. Please evacuate the ice surface immediately, as several individuals were reported breaking into the ice. Please adhere to our instructions immediately". This continued in several areas of the lake, including where I was skating. I was not quite sure right away, whether I should do as they said, because night temperatures had been very low and I gathered the surface being solid in those areas that hadn't been in broad sunlight all day. But the experience yesterday along with actually people falling into the water had sort of busted my confidence, so I decided to turn around to get off the lake.

 

On the way back, I came past that spot with the skate-sailer again, and apparently water-rescue had taken over. But they still seemed to be busy with rescuing the guy or getting his equipment out of the water or something. This had been going on for well over 30 minutes and I have no idea, how long the guy had been in there when I first came to this spot. However, as I came past them again, they seemed to have finished "fishing" for equipment and the guy had apparently already been taken care of earlier, as there wasn't a person to be seen on a stretcher and in blankets or something like this. There was a small group just walking, two guys pushing the sleigh towards the bank and three of them sitting on the sleigh. As I wanted to do something to help, I approached them and offered to be pushing the sleigh, figuring that being on skates myself that should go faster. They had swimsuits on and although it was still sunny and warm, I figured them to be quite cold, having gotten into the water repeatedly.

The two guys, who had been pushing seated themselves on the thing, and two more of the guys walking joined them. We were about half a mile away from the bank.

I started out with powerful strides, but had to realize after about 100 meters that I wouldn't be able to keep that pace, as that thing carrying the six to seven people including the equipment must have weighed at least around 700 pounds - while my weight is somewhere around 150.

By the time we reached the bank, I had to realize to my greatest disappointment that my shape needs some serious "refurbishing" - I was panting, tasting blood in my mouth, lungs burning - ugh! But anyway, the important thing is that they had rescued everybody (I asked, of course) and that noone seemed to be in a serious condition (except me ;-)) And I take this experience of getting exhausted so quickly as a wake-up call to be focussing more on getting myself back into shape and building some stamina again - damn, that sucks...

What a day!

Skating "Fit"