Summer arrived in force Wednesday on South Whidbey, leaving a scorched trail of sunburns and people seeking shelter from the rays after temperatures topped 94 degrees.

Adding to the heat was a relative lack of cooling breezes, which typically keeps Whidbey Island residents more chilled than mainlanders in Puget Sound.

A number of people decided to “chill” by jumping into the cooling waters of Goss Lake.

From people playing with their dogs, to swimming or simply enjoying the calm waters of the lake on inflatable toys, people beat the heat.

The lack of a wind kept the heat intense for a Greenbank man, who sailed into Langley marina for Choochokam Arts festival.

“It was unbearably hot, hotter than I can ever remember being down here,” said Dave Draper, owner of the sailboat The Rock.

“There was no breeze. It was muggy and still. I put up my little shade, took a shower and drank a lot of water,” Draper said.

Drinking lots of water is exactly what is required on hot days like this, said John Bitting, acting chief nurse in Whidbey General Hospital’s Emergency Room.

“Surprisingly enough, we didn’t have reports of heat stress or stroke,” he said. “People must be hydrating.”

Other people took the heat in stride and took their work outside.

“I closed the office door and moved my office to the beach,” said Mynda Myres, the innkeeper at Boatyard Inn.

“It was pretty unbearable,” she added. “If there had been a breeze, it would have been fine. Cold drinks and ice cream were on the agenda for my customers.”

Windwalker Taibi, owner of Raven Rocks Studio in Langley, stayed in front of his fan to keep cool but discovered a little cooling breeze at the waterfront during a 15-minute break from the studio.

“People were dragging down the sidewalk or ducking into entryways just to hang out,” he said.

Cold food was the order of the evening at Mike’s Place as people flocked to the restaurant to get out of their own kitchens.

“We were very busy,” said night cook Stephen Paul. “We sold a lot of salads; people were eating colder food.”

Typically, Whidbey Island is cooler as a result of topography, said Ted Buehner, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Seattle.

“It clearly shows that the topography and orientation of water in our area provides a wide variety of temperatures,” he said. “One of the areas suggested for relief from the heat was to go to the shorelines.”

Light pressure differences accounted for the lack of wind in western Washington, he said.

“Typically summer begins in our region around July 12,” he said.

“But looking ahead to the next week, it’s looking like we’ll be either at or even a little bit below average normal temperatures. But the rest of the summer still shows we may have another opportunity for one or two more really good warm weather patterns before the summer is over,” Buehner said.

Spencer Webster can be reached at 221-5300 or at swebster@southwhidbeyrecord.com