Saturday, October 11th, 2025

The Saturday Morning Swim Report - 

The swimming conditions this morning were great except for the wind. The 20 MPH winds from my house in San Luis Obispo were blowing offshore in Avila Beach. Near the shore the water was rippled but did not have a chop. The air temperature was 60° and the water was 58° with warmer and colder spots.       

I saw this really strange light when I was taking the water temp from the pier. I'm looking east down the buoy line towards Fossil Point. It looked like there were cars parked on the Point with their lights shining out to sea but there isn't a road or beach there. People fishing for squid use a lot of lights..... I don't know  

I suggested that we swim to the point and check it out but by the time we were walking to the water the east buoy line had become a parking lot for pelicans so we headed west to the first crossbars on the Poly Pier. On the way to the end of the pier the wind built up the chop. At the end of the pier the chop was 12 to 18 inches with a strong push.            

Jodi, Tom I. and Niel at the end of the Poly Pier. 

The swim to the end of the Avila Pier was directly into the wind with the chop breaking over our heads. We hadn't done this kind of ocean swimming since last winter.  We swam around the reef buoy and the swim back along the west buoy line felt like a stroll. 

On the beach Tom had 400 more yards than Jodi and just one more minute of swimming with an identical plot. (I'm in meters so I couldn't play along).  Tom said that he had been swimming so easily that he sprinted the last 400 yards. 

My distance was half way between Jodi and Tom. I lost track of them in the chop several times so I don't know what king of fun they were having before I caught up.   

Paula and I will swim tomorrow at 11.

NOAA is predicting an 80% chance of thunderstorms and heavy rain Monday night and Tuesday, so my Tuesday swim may get rained out.

niel