We got the weather thing straightened out - Fred got a reply from Eye on the Sky weatherman, Chris Bouchard:

Hi Fred,

Thanks for pointing this out! I was in for Steve this weekend, and I forgot to update the banner forecast portion of the website, but did update the detailed forecast. This caused the discrepancy. Thanks for letting me know though, I fixed it right after reading your memo.

Best,

Chris Bouchard
Meteorologist

In the meantime, the link Steve Allen sent to Fred seems to be working well so we think we'll leave that on the web site, at least for now.

*****

I received these pictures from Jennefer Cowles who has a cottage on the Rt. 2 side of the middle pond. She wrote that she took them in August, but I thought they are so striking others would enjoy seeing them. The pictures so many of you have sent this summer show how much we all appreciate the beauty of the pond and our "Northeast Kingdom" . . . I've lived here all my life and still love it and see beauty here every day.

By the way, I was talking to Jane Larrabee about that 30 ft. boat the divers found on their first dive here at Joe's - the one they couldn't find again when they were here a couple weeks ago. I told Jane I can vaguely recall my father telling me about an excursion boat being on Joe's Pond, and Jane said that she believes that could be. She has a photo showing a landing just about opposite where the town landing is in W. Danville now - it was on the Rt. 2 side of the pond. She believes it could have been where the excursions left from to take people around the lake.

I know in the past there were often hulls of old wooden boats caught in the reeds at the north end of the pond near where Billy Hamilton's home is now - the wind would carry them up there if they got loose from their moorings. Those old wooden boats weren't worth as much as the modern boats of today, and generally they were flat bottomed plank boats that were inclined to leak unless they were well packed with oakum. Nobody paid much attention if they drifted off and eventually they would become habitat for the fish and frogs in the reeds. That large boat could have met a similar fate, or perhaps it was no longer useful or safe and the owners took the easy way out and scuttled it. Easier than trying to haul a boat that size and that nobody wanted out of the water

My father told me that before there were camps on the pond a boat was kept near where the Walker's camp is now by a man named Asa Mack. Asa lived on what is now called Chatot Road, just above the pond, and he tied his boat to a tree and used it for fishing. He was generous about allowing his neighbors to use it whenever they wanted to. My father told what a nice boat it was, how easy it was to row it, and how people liked to take it out onto the pond. According to my father, some of the young folks in the area began to take the boat out without permission, overloading it with their friends, and Mr. Mack was concerned that there would be an accident. So he loaded it with some good sized stones, punched holes in the bottom, and gave it a big shove away from shore. It floated way out into the pond and then sank where there is a depth of nearly 100 feet of water. My dad said a lots of folks missed being able to use that boat.

There is no way this is the same boat - Mr. Mack's was an ordinary rowboat, certainly not 30 ft. long. But Jane will see if she can find the photo of the wharf used years ago, and perhaps someone else will remember something so we can put together the pieces of this puzzle about the big boat the divers saw on the bottom of the pond.

(Don't forget to click on the photos to enlarge them for good viewing.)