Sunday, October 28, 2012

We swam at Lopez Lake on Sunday . There had been a raw sewage spill into Avila Creek in San Luis Obispo on Friday and the Health Dept. had advised that there be no contact with either the water or wet sand  between the pier and the mouth of the creek.  Not knowing how the bugs would know to stay on that side of the pier we decided to do a swim at Lopez Lake instead.  We met a Mallard Cove at 10:30.  It was hot but there was no wind.  Allison and Kris were there with their kayaks to keep us safe.  Swimming were Niel, Rob, Jason, Ruta and Ed.  The top surface of the water was in the high 60's but it was 6 inches down it was in the low 60's or high 50's.  We swam out to the mouth of the cove, turned right and swam to the far end of the next cove which is a nice swimming beach.  Hey, fresh water tastes better!  We retraced our route back to the mouth of Mallard Cove . Ruta and Ed headed in with Niel, Rob and Jason intending to swim into the next cove to the south before heading back.  Our plan was modified when a group of jet skies that launched and started playing off of the point the we had intended to swim around.  We were in a no wake zone but it was just more traffic than we wanted to get involved with so we headed back to the beach.  We covered a little over a mile in 40 minutes having spent a lot of time in the water
conferencing about  the route.
Lopez would be an even greater place to swim on a weekday so we will be looking for an opportunity to come back.  Rob is planning a swim here on Black Friday with distances up to 6k so watch his blog and the Central Coast Open Water email group for more information.  


You can see all of Rob's photos from this swim at http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=483931974980828&set=a.483931421647550.112847.117753191598710&type=1

niel