Wednesday Evening, May 11, 2011

It had been windy all day Wednesdayand there was still a strong breeze blowing at Avila Beach at 5 PM. The wind was blowing from right to left, almost parallel to the beach, and the resulting chop was starting to break into whitecaps. I got a temperature of 55, which seemed odd as the station over at the port had been reading 50 - 51 all day. I wondered if the steady west wind was pushing warmer water from the creek, which is at the far western end of the beach, towards the pier. We'd find out soon. Rob and Ryan were here so we would be a threesome this evening. We decided to go out on the west (windward) side of the pier and swim the phantom buoy line to the creek, turn to the end of the Avila Pier and then swim to the second, and last, buoy on the east side before returning to the pier. It felt colder than 55 getting in. There are 'wind aided' times in track so I think there should be 'wind deducted' water temperatures for ocean swimming. This applies especially when I look over at Rob, getting in with wearing just his shorts and a single cap. The leg down to the creek was almost directly into the chop. I quickly stopped thinking about the water temperature and focused on timing my stroke, breathing and keeping a strong pull against the steady slap of the chop that was breaking into my head. We regrouped near the mouth of the creek and headed towards the end of the pier. I was feeling comfortable with the water temperature at this point so 55 seemed reasonable. This leg was across the direction of the wind. I was getting bent every which way by the waves and it felt like I was getting a full body massage. We grouped up at the end of the pier and started for the last buoy on the east side of the pier. Just after we started on this leg the water temperature dropped a couple of degrees, so my idea bout the water from the creek was right. The wind was behind us on the third leg and I occasionally got picked up and surfed down a small face. There were several fishermen on the pier near the surfline so instead of swimming parallel to the beach towards the pier and turning in to the beach we decided to angle from the buoy directly to the beach opposite our stuff and not risk getting near the lines trailing out from the pier.

We swam just about a mile and were in the water for 31 minutes.

niel