It was gray and a bit breezy at Avila Beach this morning. It was not cold, but the deck of low clouds was thick over the beach and did not look much like it would be clearing. The water temperature over at the port had spiked up a few days ago so I had hopes when I took the water temperature. The reading was just below 59 degrees, a very welcome change from the mid to low 50's we have been experiencing. Out on the pier the wind was steady and out of the SW. It had built up a closely spaced wind swell/chop that was pushing towards the shore. Swimming today were Sylvia, Yvonne, Niel, Rob and Dave VanMouwreik. Yvonne decided to go without her wet suit today which left me as the only rubber assisted swimmer getting in the water. I don't mind being the rebel in the group and besides, I was willing to make the sacrifice and wear a wet suit in order to help the others feel good about going skins. :-). Rob, Dave and I got started first. We were joined at the shore by John (or Shawn, sorry) who is one of the lifeguards and was also going skins style. We went out and headed left along the buoys to the end with the intent of doing several laps of the triangle course. The leg from the end of the buoy line to the end of the pier was almost directly into the chop and was a lot of work. The chop was about one foot high and close together made both breathing and navigating tough. The next leg was across the chop and was easier but still a challenge. We returned along the west side of the buoy line to the pier. At this point Rob and Shawn went in. Dave and I continued to the first buoy on the left side where I had tethered some sport drink. We decided to reverse our direction for the second lap to see how the chop was going the opposite direction. Parallel to the beach was the same slog. the leg to the pier across but pushing into the chop was tough. The third leg would be 'down wind' and Dave and I agreed that we had earned this easier leg. We came back along the buoys to my feeding station. Dave decided to head in. I had planned to do three laps today (about 3.6 miles) but the 2.4 we had done felt like enough effort for a good three miles and the thought of lunch sounded too good to resist. We were in the water for 1h 13 m. I met up with Sylvia and Yvonne on the beach. They had done one lap of the triangle and we had managed to never see each other! The chop made it like swimming in a tunnel so I guess we passed each other and never realized it. The sun managed to come out as we were drying off but disappeared an hour later.
Rob will and I should be back Wednesday evening to swim at 5:30. We will both be out of town next weekend so Dave will be the beach master.
niel
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