TONKA BAY, Minn. - At Tonka Bay Marina the going boats in. But just a few hundred feet away, it’s still not ice out.
Ice half-a-foot thick is still being measured across wide swaths of Lake Minnetonka.
Gabriel Jabbour, the owner of Tonka Bay Marina, had two sturdy-hulled boats out most of the week breaking up ice. He wasn’t trying to open up the lake, but rather prevent intact sheets of ice from being pushed by wind, and potentially smashing his pier.
“If you break it in small pieces it will not have that force,” Jabbour says.
The Hennepin County Sheriff's Office Water Patrol was back on Lake Minnetonka Friday too, in an airboat that will carry deputies over both water and ice.
On Saturday, Lake Minnetonka will likely tie a latest ice out record set in 1857.
“Some of the bays are open, others are not, but until one of our boats can cross the lake from one side of the lake to the other unobstructed, it's winter,” Hennepin County Sheriff Richard Stanek said.
Jabbour has the perspective of a man who’s spent 45 years on Lake Minnetonka. “In Minnesota we have the land of extreme,” he said. “Last year was unbelievably early, this year is unbelievably late. And stay tuned. Who knows.”