It was sunny with no sign or rain at Avila Beach but it was windy. It has been generally calm for us so this was going to be more like a real ocean swim! The wind and current were out of the SW. The chop was small and not breaking but was really pushing along. I do not know if it was because of the change in the direction of the wind but the water temperature was up to 55.5 degrees. It says something when everyone is excited about a 'warm' water temperature in the mid-fifties. We had a nice group today; Niel, Rob, Byron, Brad, Sylvia and Kevin, a friend of Rob's from Allan Hancock College. Kevin has played college water polo so I figured that that took care of his creds as a swimmer. Sharley came with Byron and was going to go for a run while we swam. Byron had swum on Wednesday evening and said that the water on the west side of the pier had tasted bad, and Thursday's sample from the beach on that side had come up at 173 (the limit is 104 for Enterococcus) so we decided to stay away from the west side of the pier. Our route was to swim two triangles on the east side of the pier; we would go out along the length of the Avila Pier to its' end, then to where the buoy line ended (when there were No Boating Zone buoys along the beach) and back to the pier by swimming parallel to the beach. The water felt much more comfortable compared to last Sunday's 49 degrees. It was some extra work on the first leg pushing against the chop and current. By the time we were half way out along the pier the ranking for the day had sorted itself out. Kevin was off the front with Brad trying draft. Byron was somewhere third and Rob and I were off the back. It looks like we need Casey back with us so he can keep Kevin and Brad amused. The second leg was 'downwind' and the third leg parallel to the beach was OK because the chop flattens out in the shadow of the pier. When we all arrived at the pier we agreed to reverse the direction of the second triangle, so we started out with a following current, swam the longest leg directly into the chop and then came in along the pier. We were in the water for a total of 47 minutes and covered about 1.5 miles.
I should receive a new docking station from Finis for my Hydro Tracker this week which will hopefully solve my technical issues and let me resume posting maps of our swims.
The Cal Poly Pier will be open for tours on Saturday, May 4th. It is free and if you have never been out on the Poly Pier you ought to make plans to go. The student projects are cool and at 900 M in length, you get to see Avila Bay from a unique perspective.
http://calpolynews.calpoly.edu/news_releases/2013/March/Pier.html
niel
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