Wednesday Evening, March 30, 2011

Back In The Water Again - I think that it has been over two weeks since Avila Beach has been swimable. The rain has stopped and the water has cleared up so Rob and I got in Wednesday evening. There was an offshore breeze, the air temperature was in the upper 70's and the water was 55.5. The 'surf' was maybe 2' high, but the wind was holding up the faces nicely and they looked green and transparent. The wind had put a small chop on the water but since it was blowing right off of the shore the chop would stay small. Rob suggested that we do the Classic Triangle, which was fine with me. I got out to the buoy line first while Rob finished getting acclimated. I was looking around while I was waiting and noticed that the floating dock that was used to stage jet ski tours has been removed. Once Rob joined me we headed down to the left to the second and last buoy. There are still are only two of the original 4 buoys on this side of the pier; numbers 2 and 3. The first one is gone and the 4th is now anchored on a small rock pile about 100M seaward from its' original position in the line. Nobody knows if it was blown there or moved intentionally. Our leg to the end of the pier was downwind so we got a nice push. At the end of the pier we both had to slide past a fishing line that the wind and current was carrying far off the end of the pier. Because of the chop I could get glimpses of only the first buoy on this side of the pier, so we sited on the headland at the end of the bridge and headed for where the last buoy of the line should be. This leg was almost directly into the wind and chop so we got to make up for the wind aided swim on the previous leg. Once we go close it became apparent that the first buoy by the pier was the only one left of the line of four. We continued on to where we thought the last buoy should of been and turned towards the pier. We swam under the pier (something else we have not done in some time due to the large surf) and came in. Rob's GPS said we had covered 1.8K in 35 minutes.

Rob and I stayed for dinner and at 7:30 came out to a great sunset. You can see his photos at www.robaquatics.com

Rob will be out of town this weekend but I will be at Avila on Sunday.

niel