Thursday December 30, 2010

Rob and I did a noon swim today. It was sunny and clear at Avila Beach with a steady wind from the NW. There were no whitecaps on the water but the surface was getting messed up. The water temperature was 54 degrees. The county had updated the beach advisory website on the 29th and there were no closures posted. The water was reasonable clear and there were just a few ducks, one seal and two optimistic boogie boarders in the water. We were going to swim down to Fossil Point but the tide was really low, it seemed like we had been able to wade in all of the way out to the buoy line, and when we stopped to regroup at the end of the sea wall we could see a lot of white water around the point. We were also still riding up and down several feet on the incoming swells this far from the beach so we bailed on swimming into the rocks and surf at the point and turned towards the end of the Avila Pier. The wind was coming over our right shoulders on this leg and I had to start modifying my stroke so I could get a clear breath. The wind really kicked up while we were at the end of the pier and I had to switch from breathing on alternate sides to just the right side on the way back to the seawall. This swim was about a mile and we were in for 35 minutes. Rob was trying out his new GPS unit which was under his cap and velcroed to his goggles strap. You can check out his review of the unit and the map of our swim at his website; www.robaquatics.com.

Rob is doing his Pier to Pier Swim tomorrow morning. The weather report has upgraded (?) the conditions from a 90% chance of rain down to 80%. I don't know that the rain will make much difference to Rob, except that he may be able to get a drink by just rolling on his back. I does mean that everyone else, including yours truly in the kayak, will be getting wet too.

The Avila Dolphins New Year's Day Swim is rescheduled tentatively for January 9th. We are supposed to have sunny weather and 60 degree temperatures by Wednesday. We will swim on the 9th anyway, if the weather is good let's make it a party!

niel