Tuesday, May 21, 2024

Tuesday, May 21st, 2024

The water gods enjoy having some fun at a swimmers expense. I put myself out there in Sunday's blog by posting the 55° water temp and announcing the arrival of the comfortable swimming season.
As I was wading in this morning I thought I heard some laughter, but maybe it was my toes yelling 'this isn't warm!'  The water was 50° this morning, which is amazing. I do not know how such a huge mass of water can drop 5 degrees in two days. 
A strong offshore wind can produce a big temperature drop in the water temperature but we have not had that kind of wind.
Tom's toes tell him what the water temperature is. I get a good idea by how long it takes me to get to the point when the cold is no longer dominating my mind. Today it took until I had turned past the reef buoy and was heading towards the end of the Avila Pier which equates to the bottom 50's for me. 


The upside was that I was feeling cold when I was getting ready to leave the house so I went ahead and put on my booties.  

The water was clean and flat and the surf small. 

I stopped at the first buoy before heading in, checked my thermometer and confirmed my 50° estimate.  If it is cold like today I prefer to not really know what the water temperature is until the end of the swim, so I can play some mind games; is it really this cold or is it just me today?  The first half of the swim my thoughts kept coming back to the water temperature and I kept thinking that staying in for 90 minutes would be tough, but during the second half the water temp stopped dominating my thoughts, I felt more comfortable, thought that I found some warmer spots and was cold but OK when I got out.      


I'll have no preconceptions about the water conditions on Thursday and Saturday.

niel 

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