Sunday, July 17. 2011

It was a beautiful swimming day at Avila Beach today. The water was 56 degrees and clear. There was no wind and the surface of the water was about as flat as the ocean gets. There were only a few people fishing from the pier and before the swim I saw no seabirds or seals in the water. We did two swims today. Dale, Amy, Sylvia and Yvonne swam a triangular route starting left down the buoy line, continuing to the end of the Avila Pier, down to the buoy at the creek and back to the pier. Niel, Rob, Duke, Pete and Chad swam out to the end of the Avila Pier and headed over to the Poly Pier on a route that was roughly parallel to the beach. Except for one cold spot this leg was some of the smoothest ocean swimming I have had at Avila. Our route put us at the third set of cross bracing out from the shore on the Poly Pier. We swam parallel to the pier (I swam between the pilings which was cool!) back towards the shore to the second set of cross bracing which is our usual waypoint when we swim over here. From there we continued to the buoy at the creek and along the buoy line to the Avila Pier, under the pier and in to the beach. Rob had 2300M, or 1.4 miles, on his GPS and we were in the water for 55 minutes. The temperature on the beach was just about perfect for napping. Matt Farmer came by and chatted for a while. By 1:30 the wind had still not come up, the swimming conditions still looked great but it was getting hot on the beach and we were down wind from a smoker so we all packed up and got on with our respective Sunday's

niel

**For anyone that might be interested there's a good Masters Swimming open water race coming up in Santa Cruz on the 30th. It's 1 mile around the wharf and a lot of fun, this will be my third year in a row swimming it! You can read more and get the entry information here: http://www.pacificmasters.org/comp/openwater_meetsheet/11cruzrough.pdf Keep in mind that if you aren't a member of USMS you will have to sign up in order to participate in the event! - Rob D.