Yesterday afternoon, eight brave souls decided to abandon their desks and help CFL facility manager, Dave Harring, put the Hasler Lab dock out into Lake Mendota. It was an unusual sight for March 20th to say the least – 80 degree weather, crew boats gliding past us on the water – but it appears field season is starting early this year for all CFL researchers who prefer the open water. Harring says this is easily the “earliest we’ve ever put the dock in. Usually I’m scrambling [to get the dock in] when students start wanting to use it for labs and sampling sometime in April.” (Also of note yesterday – Trout Lake Station was witnessing its earliest ice off in history)
The mechanics of installing the dock still elude definition, but I’ll try to elaborate with the slideshow below:
(If you’re having trouble seeing the captions, try watching from the CFL YouTube channel)