A Nice Morning With Bigish Surf and A Bait Ball -
Niel, Jodi and Tom got in the water at 7:30. It was sunny, 48° and there was a steady offshore breeze. The surf was up with sets of 4'+ waves but there were good breaks in between the large sets. The water was 52°.
There was a large bait ball off of Avila, about as far offshore as the Avila Rock, so we made plans to swim the opposite direction over to the Poly Pier but by the time we were wading in the bait ball had moved over to the P Pier, so we switched to swimming the to Fossil Point. We could see the sea lions diving on the fish and herding them to keep them together, which causes the whole feeding frenzy to move around.
I was ahead of Jodi and Tom as we wading in. I saw a good break in the swell and committed. Before I was past the break zone the swell came back up and I needed to swam under and through a number of waves before getting past the break and out to the first buoy. Tom and Jodi were caught inside and had to wait for the swell to go down. We grouped up at the first buoy and headed east toward Fossil Point.
When we stopped at the point the bait ball was back on our side of the Avila Pier and about 250M east of us. We could see the sea lions and otters diving back and forth and chowing down on the bait fish. So, we headed towards the shore, back the way we had come, towards the buoy line and back to the pier. At the pier we'd lost track of the bait ball and decided to swim to the 4th buoy on the west side and back.
When we were ready to come in the surf was up so we swam to the second buoy on the east side which was far enough away from the pier for the surf to lay down a bit. We had no issues swimming in and managed to look like we knew what were were doing rather than just swimming in, committed to whatever thrashing we might receive from the waves.
We will get some rain tonight and Sunday. I'll check the rain gauge in the morning to see if the water quality looks OK for a swim.
niel
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