At 7AM the June Gloom had gone to full fog mode with limited visibility. There didn't seem to be much chance of clearing so I decided to swim to the east end of the buoy line and see what the view was like from there. If I could see the end of the pier I'd head for there and do some triangles. If the end of the pier wasn't visible, I could do laps along the buoy line.
The air temperature was 55° and the water was 61° and with no sun it would swim more like 59°.
Between the end of the pier and the last buoy at the mouth of the creek.
Yes, that is a new wetsuit. I'm a cold temp wimp and after 100 swims my Patagonia R3 has gotten leaky and is now not much warmer than my Xterra tri suit and neither is as comfortable as I'd like, so that is an Orca RS1 Thermal Openwater.
After one swim my impression is: I like the day-glow graphics. They should be very visible. This suit is not (yet, keep reading) as warm as the R3 so I may need another R3 for sub 55 water. The suit is very lightweight, extremely comfortable and great to swim in but I had trouble with the collar. It has an inner collar to help seal the neck area (like the R3) but every time I raised my head to take a sighting my shoulders were flooded with cold water. Perhaps I had gotten something wrong putting it on because that can't be right. We'll see on Thursday. I also bought Orca's 1.4mm long sleeve 't-shirt' to extend the temperature range of the suit You can wear the t-shirt by itself or inside the wetsuit in cold conditions. Once I understand what is going on with the collar I'll try out the t-shirt and make sure it is comfortable. If the collar doesn't leak and the t-shirt adds enough warmth to my arms this suit could work into the lower 50's.
I'll be getting in at 9 on Thursday.
niel
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