Sunday, January 9th, 2011

With the water pollution from the rain and being out of town for the holidays, it had been three or four weeks since I have been in the water at Avila, but today made up for what I had been missing. It was sunny and pleasant at the beach. There was a gusty offshore wind and almost no surf. There were a few optimistic surfers, one seal, and a few gulls in the water. The water was clear with a temperature of 53. Swimming today were Rob, Sylvia, Pete, Niel, Kim and Susan, who had driven over from the valley to join us today. A swim of "about a mile" sounded good for everyone so we started out to do the buoy line end to end. Susan, Rob and I were starting to get wet while Sylvia, Pete and Kim were still getting down to the water. Susan and I decided to get going, figuring that Rob and the others would catch up at the buoy line. When we got to the buoy line the rest of the group had not started swimming out yet so rather than wait longer and get (more) chilled we started down the buoys to the left towards the end of the seawall. When Susan and I stopped to at the seawall we were still a ways ahead of the group, and rather than swim back along the buoy line through them we changed routes and headed towards the end of the pier. At the end of the pier we again elected not to wait and headed for the last buoy at the creek. The wind was picking up and we had some chop and current to deal with on our leg towards the creek. When Rob, Pete, Kim and Sylvia reached the end of the pier they decided to head back in along the length of the pier. When Susan and I came through the pier and turned towards the beach we met up with the group coming in along the pier. Susan and I swam just over a mile and finished in 34 minutes. Afterwards Rob mentioned that he had a tough time with todays swim and it had him thinking that he was not yet fully recovered from his New Year's Day 11k effort. I don't see anything wrong with that. I'd still be frozen solid if I had done a 4 hour swim in 53 degree water.

Right now next Sunday's forecast is for sunny weather and temperatures in the high 60's so I'm planning on being back for more.

niel