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As long as lake levels remain low, unexpected items may keep turning up in our area lakes. For Ron Rust's grandchildren, a long-sunken boat became a found treasure last week that would have never been found during a normal spring.

Rust lives on South Center Lake, on the west side of the lake near the boat landing on Machmeier Court. As he often does, Rust was spending time in the water and shoreline behind his home with his visiting grandchildren. As they were walking along in the water, Jake, Max and Kate literally kicked something that wasn't supposed to be there.

Soon, the four were pulling a 14 foot fiberglass fishing boat out of the water and onto the beach. Rust quickly ascertained that the boat had been submerged for a long time.

"I've lived here 17 years, and I know it's probably a lot older than that," Rust said.

The boat was in rough shape - its edges chipped and worn away, its surfaces covered in thick green algae and muck. Rust said it wasn't salvageable, and would have been dangerous to keep around. He has since cut the boat into pieces and thrown it away.

But not before he tried to learn more about the boat's owner. His grandkids helped him scrape the scum away from the boat's license tag, but the only thing readable was that it was a Minnesota license.

Rust said the boat was submerged in four-and-a-half feet of water, where normally the lake level would be about eight or nine feet. It was 30 feet out from the lake's current shoreline, where the Rusts are enjoying a beach this spring that was never there before.

"I've never seen the lake this low," Rust said. "The level is good where we are, so we're lucky - we haven't had to add to the dock or anything. And having the beach is nice," adding, still, it would be nice to see the lake level rise.

Although it wasn't usable, Rust said his grandkids were very excited about finding the boat. With their imaginations, it became sunken treasure, and they became pirates. It didn't matter that they couldn't use the boat, or find anything else to go with it. A warm spring day suddenly turned into an adventure to always remember.

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