13th October, 2024

 

The Fog Monster That Ate Avila Beach - 

The lovely sunshine on Saturday morning was just a memory today. Today Avila had dense fog until it cleared at 1 and became a pleasant day. 

I started out today by meeting Duke at 9 for coffee and some catching up. He is looking good and moving much better than then a few month sago. It was a great visit with plenty of talk that tended towards injuries and recovery's.  

I got my stuff down to the beach at 10:15, spoke with Tom Lorish about his swim (stuck to the left buoy line, the right side was too dirty), and got in at 11. The surf has been coming up all week and today the largest sets were crowding 5'. The waves were closing out so the few kids with boogie boards were just trying to catch some foam to ride into the beach. 

I waited out the big sets and only had to duck dive one wave to get out. Tom Israel caught up to me at the first buoy. The water was kind'a dirty and 59°. We swam to the 4th buoy and back to #1 and decided to take a look at the end of the Avila pier to see if the other side of the pier was OK. The water conditions at the end of the pier were awful so we took a bearing on the fog and swam back to the 4th buoy.       

    

Tom at the end of the Avila Pier. 

Critics everywhere, all with something to squawk about my swimming.

Tom arrived at #4 100M ahead of me. The fog parted enough to show us the harbor patrol boat to our right, just starting a pass along the buoys, splitting the space between Tom and I. They made sure that there were just two of us and turned seaward to give us plenty of room. 

That had been enough so Tom and I went in when we got back to the first buoy.  

Fog or not, I'll swim Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday at 7 this coming week. 

niel