Sunday, February 27, 2011

It was sunny and surprisingly warm at Avila Beach today. There was a small but steady breeze out of the southwest that had put a small chop on the water. The water clarity looked OK, but was noticeably more silted up near the creek. Kris had come down to the beach with me and was walking along the shore and it was just Rob and I swimming. We decided to go in on the right side of the pier and do the triangle route counterclockwise. I measured a water temperature of 53.5 but I sure felt colder as we started to get in. I finally got started and Rob followed me out to the buoy line. We turned right and headed down the buoys to the creek. The chop was coming oner my right shoulder and was being kind of pesky. A ways past the third buoy the water get murky and I stopped. That is when I noticed that there was no longer a fourth buoy near the mouth of the creek. We decided to turn towards the end of the pier at that point. We were now headed almost perpendicular to the chop which was more changeling. Occasionally a larger wave would break right over my head. The swim from the end of the pier to the end of the sea wall was 'downhill', with the chop following behind us and the last leg along the buoys back to the pier was pretty easy. We were in the water for 30 minutes, entry to exit, and covered a mile. Since we have been swimming at 11 instead of 1PM the water conditions have been smoother and today was a nice challenge to relearn my bumpy water skills. After we got out Duke stopped by at the start of his bike ride to see how we were doing.

Rob will be at the CalTech pentathlon in Pasadena next Sunday but is interested if anyone wants to swim on Saturday. We also have a new swimmer who is interested in swimming on weekday mornings. You can post your interest on the Avila Swimming Facebook page or email Rob (rob@robaquatics.com).

niel