It turns out the spikes below the surface of the water at Green Lake Boating Center in Seattle weren't put there by sadists, as originally thought.
Patti says: "We were all so appalled that someone would do such a malicious thing, and thank goodness it wasn't that at all. They now say the stakes were put there by the parks department –- they'd been curved over at the top, that part had rusted off."
Seattle parks department responsible for spikes in lake (www.examiner.com)