Sunday, October 14, 2019

 Fall is a great time to be in Avila Beach and today was a good example of why. It was clear, calm, sunny, comfortably warm with great swimming conditions. The air temperature was in the upper 70's, the water was 57 degrees with 1 foot surf and just a hint of a breeze.  

Checking out the water quality while taking the water temperature. 

It wasn't as clear as last week but looked pretty good but a bit green. You can see the thermometer hanging below my shampoo bottle float.

We had a large group today of 16 to 18 people with several new swimmers;  I did get the names of Niel, Ben (visiting from Seattle) Tom, Duke, Maria, Jonny, John, Stephanie, Tim, Teresa, Brenda, Peter, AnneMarie and Dana. There were too many swimmers with the similar colors of caps so I gave up keeping everyone sorted out in the water. There were at least two separate routes. 
Group A did what Tom called the Figure 8, which was a combination of some familiar routes combined into what turned out to be a 1.5+ mile swim; out to the end of the pier, to the 4th buoy on the east side, back to the pier along the buoy line, under the pier and to the end of the pier for the second time, to the 4th buoy on the west side at the mouth of the creek and finishing up by swimming along the buoy line to the pier and in. The water was exceptionally clear in places with a fog of red tide junk below us near the end of the pier.
I think that Group B swam to the end of the pier west towards the Cal Poly Pier, around an anchored boat and back to their starting point. 

Group 1 getting in. 

Grouping up for the first time at the end of the Avila Pioer. 

Group 1 forming up at the 4th buoy on the east end of the line. 

This is Maria, a new swimmer and Teresa at the end of the swim at the first buoy. 

Maria gets special mention for being the only swimmer today to go bareback but also 4 Gold Stars to have shown up to swim today after having completed the City to the Sea half marathon this morning in a time of about 2 hours. 

niel