Thursday, December 29th, 2022

 Sneaking In Before the Rain -

It is difficult to smile in 52° water

After a week out of the water and 1100 miles of traveling I was really feeling the need for a swim. The swimming conditions this weekend didn't look good so I put out positive thoughts about the water quality and swam this morning. I got in about 7:30 and swam for something less than an hour. It was great. I stayed on the left/east side of the Avila Pier to keep some distance between myself and the creek. 

The air and water temperatures were 52°.  It was pretty calm and gray. There was a combination of soft chop (see next sentence) and swell that made swimming pretty physical. 

Soft Chop, I just made this up to describe todays surface condition when there is no wind but there is a wind chop like surface (small wavelets close together) on the water, but since there is no wind they are not steep and peaky but 'soft'.  Does anyone know? 

I swam out to the end of the Avila Pier, turned left and swam parallel to the beach until I was directly off of Fossil Point, I roughly followed the coastline along the point until I was in line with the buoy line, angled left and swam parallel to the beach  back to the pier and in.

Gear Reports -

Garmin Customer Support - My Garmin 735XT died last week. I went on line to Customer Support page, entered my watches' seral number and selected the option to receive a return phone call in 1 minute. They also told me what number the return call would be coming from.  The call was right on time. The woman who assisted me was knowledgeable and helpful. I purchased this model in 2020 and there is a one year warranty. 😟 After some diagnosis she determined that my watch had leaked and had moisture inside. 😢 She then offered me an Exchange, where Garmin sends me a new 735XT and I return my dead watch to them. 😀

They put a deposit on my card which is canceled when they receive my dead watch. I could have avoid the deposit by first sending them my watch and they would send the exchange after they received it. That would take two weeks so the deposit is much faster. The only cost is the shipping.  I chose next day for $18. The call was yesterday morning and my new watch will be delivered today. I am very pleased with Garmin's customer support.

Surf Ears Ear 3.0 Plugs -  I got these for Christmas and wore them for the first time today. They are very soft silicone and customizable with three sizes for the part that goes in your ear and two sizes of the part that fits in your outer ear and keeps them in place. They are very comfortable, let sound in but keep water out, come with a leash and case and are a quality product. Made for surfing but should work just as well for swimming. I didn't pay for these but now that I have tried them I would,  I think that my hearing and the comfort is worth $60.

niel