Sunday, May 22, 2011

When I got to Avila at it was still and sunny. The water looked really clear, the tops of the waves were a nice transparent green. I got a water temperature of 55. There were three jet skis playing in the surf down at the far end of the beach near Fossil Point. Sylvia and Yvonne were out along the left side of the buoy line and turning towards the end of the pier. When I got back to our stuff on the beach the jet skis were leaving and heading back towards the port. The two stand up skis took off at high speed and it looked like they came within 100M or less of Sylvia and Yvonne who were on their way to the end of the Avila Pier. That was clearly a violation of the required distance that a powered craft must maintain for a swimmer, anywhere in the water. Next a fishing boat pulled up towards the the end of the pier and moved over to the moorings on the west side. Yvonne said that this boat, though moving slowly, cam closer than comfortable. This was before 11, when the lifeguards man the towers so I do not know if any of these operators was cautioned by the Harbor Patrol. Duke, Chad and I decided to do about a mile along the buoy line, for no other reason than we had not do a swim that was all parallel to the beach in a long time. We went out, turned left and swam to the end of the sea wall to approximatively where the last buoy used to be. While we were regroup we agreed that it today's conditions were superb, it was flat, the water was clean and even warmish. We agreed to do the next leg to the creek without stopping. As we emerged from under the pier onto the west side we were surprised by a reasonable chop coming straight at us. As we continued towards the creek the chop kept building up until it was really pushing me around. When we stopped at the west end of our route the surface was whitecapped and there was a strong breeze blowing. We road the chop back to our starting point and came in. This swim was about a mile in 31 minutes in the water. The wind was now blowing sand down the beach so we hurried to shower off and get dry. By the time we had settled down in our chairs the water was whitecapped into the surf line on the east side of the pier. About 12:30 Duke reluctantly left for his scheduled 40 mile ride and Chad faced a run to the port and back. I didn't have anything else planned today so Sylvia and I visited until Chad returned.

There will be a potluck lunch after next Sunday's swim so bring something to share. Swimmers and guests are welcome. The route of Sundays' swim will be determined on the beach. If we have kayak support I'd like to go longer and more offshore; to the rock off of Fossil Point (1.5 miles), or to the end of the Poly Pier and back (1.4 miles). If we do not have support or the conditions are not favorable, the group will make something else up.

niel