Sunday, July 23rd, 2023

Summer Comes To Avila Beach -

Today is the first day when it really felt like summer at Avila Beach. At 10:30 it was 70° with high broken clouds, there was a fog bank over the hills beyond Port San Luis that wrapped around to the south, the beach was crowded but not holiday crowded, the swimming conditions were great and the water was 16°C/60.8°F at the Poly Pier, which I last measured in September 2022.

Jeff Reid, David Cheney and I swam at 11. This was Jeff's last swim at Avila until next summer as he and his family will return to New Zealand tomorrow where it is winter.

We decided to swim for a bout an hour and possibly go further if it felt good. A loop around the Cal Poly Pier would be about 3200M and give Jeff some drop off points if he needed to stick to his schedule. 

There were more than the usual number of people in the water. While swimming out to the buoy it was definitly warmer than yesterday, even allowing for it being sunny and warm vs yesterday at 7 when it was foggy and cool. I wasn't surprised when I measured 61°.    

Niel. David and Jeff at the end of the CPP.

Things got a bit bumpy on the way out along the pier and there was a rolling push and chop on the way to the end of the Avila Pier. 

David and Jeff at the end of the Avila Pier. 

We swam over to and swung around the reef buoy and came back along the buoys to our starting point. The chop was well up now and I thought this leg was the roughest of the conditions today. The chop was head high plus and there was an occasional swell that would roll me around.

Jeff swam around the Avila Rock with Tom Lorish in the morning earlier in the week. Being the gracious host Tom picked a route that went down to Fossil Point and out to Avila Rock through the kelp beds.

I'll swim at 7 on Tuesday and Thursday.

niel