View from the Lake

One of the highlights of being at the cabin in my youth was going out on my Uncle Earl's pontoon. In the mid-sixties, he purchased the pontoon from a man on Gray's Bay in Minnetonka for $150. The pontoons were made out of aluminum drop gas tanks from World War II aircraft. Three tanks were welded together for each pontoon. Earl added a 7-foot by 3-foot redwood upper diving deck to the base of the pontoon. The deck was about eight feet off the water. We used this unique pontoon with its upper deck for diving or jumping into Lake Koronis.

Over the years the pontoon often sat anchored off of "Grassy Point" near the drop off by "Windmill Point" on the north side of the entrance to the west end bay at Koronis. As Earl pulled the pontoon into position he would grab the anchor and hoist it over the side. We'd all watch as the rope left the bucket. If he had judged the correct distance from the reeds, the rope would go taut leaving just a couple of feet of slack. If he missed, we'd drift for a while until the anchor took hold. Then it was time for some serious swimming.

Earl only had one rule when we went out on the pontoon: if you went up on the upper deck to jump off, you had to dive off at least once before we headed for the cabin. I always postponed the dreaded dive for the very last. In all the years of diving (at the rate of one time per ride), I never learned to dive without my head hurting. I could never seem to get my arms placed correctly to break the water.

My brother, Steve, on the other hand, loved to do his "dead man's dive" from the upper deck. With his hands at his side he would push off the deck, headfirst into the lake, literally looking like someone falling dead into the water.

The old pontoon survived into the mid to late 70s and then began to take on water in one of the pontoons. The last surviving picture of the pontoon shows it being escorted by my brothers and cousins to shore, one pontoon completely under water. It was a sad ending, but then most of my generation was growing away from Koronis.

A few years ago my uncle and aunt purchased a new pontoon and we began to reminisce about the great times on the old pontoon. On the new pontoon we would go out swimming but it just didn't seem the same without an upper deck. Earl is an inventor. He gets an idea in his head, mulls it around, and always comes up with a unique solution. While he kept saying he had an idea for a diving deck, but I couldn't imagine what it would be since his new pontoon had a nice cover over about half of the boat. Earl unveiled his newest invention last year. It was a portable ladder with a small platform inserted into sturdy brackets. The deck sat about six feet off the water and from the perch a new generation, my kids and their second cousin, have learned to dive from the heights.

As I have watched Earl's perfect diving form for years off the old pontoon and now off the new platform, I wonder how did we get so lucky to be related to him? He's provided hours of fun through his inventions and through the gift of his time. He is never in a hurry to return to shore, always lets the kids (past and present) swim until they drop, and seems to truly enjoy a view from the lake.