Some days it got pretty busy! Here one boat is coming out of the lake while another awaits their turn to put in.

Labor Day weekend marked the end of our 2020 Courtesy Boat Inspection season on Clary Lake. We had a volunteer at the State boat launch every weekend this summer, from 6 AM until 2 PM starting on Memorial Day weekend. All told we staffed 134 shifts for a total of 273 hours and conducted 421 boat inspections (including kayaks and canoes). For comparison, last season, our first summer doing CBI, we got a late start and ended up staffing just 85 two hour shifts during which we conducted 270 inspections. Last year we found 4 plants and this season we found 5. None of the plants found were considered invasive.

While most of the CBI programs around the state have paid boat inspectors, our CBI team is comprised of all volunteers and I like it like that. We are still “official” and we submit our data to the DEP, but going all volunteer means we do not have to contend with funding, payroll, and insurance issues. Plus, we’re all vested in the program: it’s our lake we’re working to protect.

All told State-Wide there were 98 invasive plants found. That’s impressive. Feel free to check out the 2020 Maine Courtesy Boat Inspection Dashboard. To see just the Clary Lake Association data, select Clary Lake Association under the select by organization pull down menu.

This year we had 11 volunteers taking turns at the launch. In no particular order: George Fergusson, Gareth Bowen, David Knight, Malcolm Burson, Kelsie French, Ellis Percy, Jack Holland, Steven Cowles, Rob Rowland, Don Hogg, and Ron Durgin. All of them deserve a big Thank You. A few of them really deserve special mention for taking on considerably more than their fair share of shifts: Steve Cowles took almost ALL the 6AM slots for a total of 32 shifts, and Gareth Bowen took many of the 8AM-10AM shifts, for a total of 23 shifts. The rest of us picked up the remainder of the shifts. Between them, Steve and Gareth took fully 41% of all the shifts. These two volunteers really anchored the program for us and I’m especially grateful for their contribution! I’d also like to welcome Don Hogg, our newest volunteer.

We’ll be doing this again next year. If you’d like to get involved, email George Fergusson.