Wednesday Evening, June 6, 2012

This swim started off with a nice surprise, Avila was warmer and less blown out than I had expected.  There had been high winds all day and the air temperature had been cool so I had expected Avila to be cold and the water to be thoroughly chopped up but the air was warm and though there was a steady breeze out of the SE the chop on the water was not not bad with no whitecaps.  I measured a water temperature of 53.5 with the wind blowing the thermometer off the west side of the pier towards the creek.  This would be important later.  I saw one otter, a couple of pelicans and there were no fishermen on the pier.  Swimming this evening were Niel, Rob and Dave VanMouwreik.  Dave's presence would tip the skin swimmer tally in Rob's favor.    We decided to swim the triangle counterclockwise, getting in on the west side of the pier.  While we were getting in and getting started swimming it felt cold but not really bad, in line with my measurement.  Dave has not been swimming in the ocean much since last summer so he wanted to press on and get warmed up, so Rob and I played catch up on the way to the last buoy at the creek.  We regrouped and started off towards the end of the pier.  We were headed into the wind and chop so this leg was a bit more work.  About 2/3 of the way to the end of the pier we swam out of the wind shadow of the pier and became exposed to the full force of the chop and a 2 to 3 degree drop in the water temperature. Oh my, this was now a different swim!  Rob and I caught up with Dave off of the end of the pier and we agreed to continue with our original plan and headed towards the last buoy in the line on the east side of the pier.  I'd lost contact with my toes and was feeling the cold in my arms but I was still feeling OK in my core and my head so it was still a mental game to not get focused on the water temperature.  Once again Dave was waiting for us at the buoy.  The water temperature had not bounced back up so this swim was going to have a cold finish.  We chatted for a bit and them decided that it was time to finish off this swim so we headed west along the buoys towards the pier and them turned in to the beach after reaching the end of the line. We were in the water for 35 minutes.  Dave was real happy to have gotten in but was taking some time to warm up.  Rob, as usual, was just going to towel off and change.  After 3 hours and 45 minutes in the water on Sunday this was not a stretch for him (see www.robaquatics.com).  Sunday's swim at 11 is on as usual.


niel