Sunday, January 18, 2015

Niel, Sylvia, Dale, Pete, Amy and John Hampsey enjoyed excellent conditions today. It was warm with high thin overcast, no wind , a glassy ocean and 58 degree water. We went out to the end of the pier, down to Fossil Point and back parallel to the beach to the Avila Pier.  We covered 1.16 miles in a casual 44 minutes. 

 Looking back towards the pier from the point.  The water doesn't get much flatter than this.

 Looking the other way at the caves in Fossil Point 

 Amy and John


I'll be back and looking for more of this next Sunday.

niel

The 2014/2015 Will Swim For Food

Tom Lorish, Stephanie Roberson, Niel Dilworth and about 85 other swimmers completed the 2014 Will Swim For Food today. The date of the swim slid into 2015 because on the traditional day, the second Saturday of December, the 10' waves, dirty water and floating debris changed the idea of swimming around the Santa Cruz Municipal Wharf from a fun event into a very bad idea.  So, step forward one month to today and conditions could not have been better. It was sunny and warming up nicely. The water was 55 degrees with 2'+ surf and a moderate swell on the west side of the pier. For the 5th year of the swim the traditional direction was reversed to allow the swimmers to complete their parade down the length of the pier and to the water without crossing traffic.  The duck thing is very cool.  One of the original swimmers was given a little rubber Santa Ducky to take with him on the swim The duck became the mascot for the event.  Now, if an individual donor contributes a minimum of $150 the organizers provide a full sized duck decoy that the swimmer can tow behind them during the swim.  The donor or the swimmer can decorate the duck as they please.  It makes for quite a show;

The Duck Lineup

 Tom's duck is painted to look like his Great Daine

 Stephanie's four ducks, from gold to attired in a sweater and scarf and mine on the step above in yellow with Christmas lights and three ducklings.

 More

 Being GoPro equipped was popular this year

 Is this the Sherman and Megan of ducks?

 Nice

 So many stories......

So, here is the start of the parade down the pier.

One swimmer and 10 ducks!

 Tom and I met up at the end of the pier.

Done, a one mile swim completed.  Three of us raised $3,227 which is about 12,900 meals. 

Thank you all for your support!

niel

Sunday, January 11, 2015

January in Avila Beach is not too bad; sunny, no wind, small waves, clear 58 degree water all make for nice swimming conditions.  Sylvia and Pete did their own swims.  Niel, Tom, Stephanie, Leslie, Amy and John Hampsey swam the triangle counterclockwise.  Stephanie and Leslie went in at the end of the pier while Niel and Tom swam the rest of the triangle. John Hampsey had gotten in after we had and was catching up so Amy waited for him and they completed their swim together.  

I did plots with both the Garmin 910 and my Finis Hydro Tracker for comparison. I got my problems with the ragged plots with the GArmin by switching it to Open Water Swimming from Running.  My confusion was because the Hydro Tracker lets you classify the type of workout after the data is uploaded and the Garmin wants it determined before the activity begins.  So here are both plots.I started the Hydro Tracker first so it logged a slightly longer distance.  The plots are not quite what I will usually post because both(!) the Finis and the Garmin websites were down this afternoon.

Stephanie, Tom and I will be in Santa Cruz next Saturday to swim around the Muni Pier for the Will Swim For Food fundraiser.  So far we have raised $3,077 for local food banks.  You can still donate to your local food bank by going to 

https://www.classy.org/santa-cruz/events/will-swim-for-food-2014/e37835.

Thanks and I'll be back in Avila on Sunday

niel

  

Sunday, January 4, 2015

We had a lovely winter day at Avila Beach today; sunny, no wind, 1 - 2 foot waves, 55 degree water and an empty beach and a nice group of swimmers.  Rob and Allison were here to get some sun and beach exposure before returning to Arcata.   Joining them were Rick, Niel, Dave Van Mouwerik, Sylvia, Stephanie, Amy, John Hampsey, Dale and Pete Kelly. Allison was going to paddle with us in her little white kayak and DanniLu and Brett were on the Big Red tandem kayak.  Dave and Rob, the no wetsuit contingent, were happy with doing about a mile along the line where the buoys are in the summer so we swam out to the catamaran and turned left.  

We grouped up at the big rock near the end of the seawall and headed back the way we had come, went under the pier and continued parallel to the beach down to the mouth of the creek.  

We had nice swimming conditions the whole time.  After our amazing summer of warm water I am having to work at getting reacclimated to more normal water temperatures. The first 5 or 10 minutes is now like the first couple of hundred meters in the pool or the first mile of a run on a cold morning, something that has to be pushed through before I get comfortable.

Changing the sampling setting on my GPS made only a small improvement to the accuracy of the plot.  I'm going to do two things next Sunday to see if the plots improves. First, on the last two plots I had forgotten to change the sport setting in the device from Running to Ocean Swimming.  I'm hoping that the Swimming setting does more buffering of the data, to both account for the movement of my wrist and the occasional loss of signal, and thereby smoothing out the plot, and I'm going to run both my old FINIS Hydro Tracker and the new Garmin 910 on the same swim and see how they compare.  The FINIS has always produced a very accurate plot. It attaches to my goggle strap and rides on the back of my head and has a much more stable location while I'm swimming.

It was great to see and be on the water with Rob, Allison and Dave.

Rob and Allison, travel safely and we hope to see you again in a few months. 

niel 

Thursday, New Years Day 2015

We had a beautiful day at Avila Beach today; sunny, warmish, clear skies and water, no wind, no waves and a very low tide.  In this photo you can see the Guadalupe dunes and the lighter piece of land to the right of the point is either Purisima Point, which is 27 miles from Avila Beach, or possibly Pt. Arguello, which is 39 miles away.  Sylvia, Kelly and Danni- Lu, and Stephanie (on a break from her bike ride) were on the beach.  Niel, Amy, John Hampsey and Rob Dumouchel !!! were swimming.  Rob and Allison are in town for Christmas break so Rob joined us today.  The water temperature was 56 degrees.  I have not recorded a water temperature that low since May 5, 2014, so thanks Rob for bringing Humboldt conditions with you to the central coast. ;-).   Since Rob has been doing school and not swimming much we got to see a somewhat extended version of his famous chicken dance as he waded in.  

Once we got going the swimming was nice.  I just needed to remind myself that before this last summer we considered 56 degrees to be a pretty nice water temperature.  Rob impressed us when he said that he quickly got comfortable with the water temperature but he really felt his lack of conditioning from not having done much swimmiing over the past semester.     

We did about a mile along the phantom buoy line, getting kind'a spread out as we age still getting used to navigating without the guidance of the swim zone buoys which are pulled out for the winter.

You can see from the plot of today's swim that I've switched from the Finis Hydro Tracker to a Garmin 910.  When swimming the plot from the 910 is all over the place compared to the results from the Hydro Tracker, which accounts for the greater than expected distance that it logged.  I've made an adjustment to the GPS settings of the 910 so we'll see this Sunday if it smooths out the plot.

Rob, and possibly Allison, should be with us on Sunday for a second immersion before they head back to Humboldt so come on by and join in on the fun.

niel  

New Plans for the Dolphin's Swim on New Years Day

The weather has changed our plans for an early swim on New Years Day.  We had planned on jumping in the water at 9 on Thursday, HOWEVER, the weather forecast is for frost that morning with temperatures around 30 degrees, which is too cold for me!  So, let's plan on swimming later in the day at 2:30.  It should be about 50 degrees and sunny by then, still wintery but not frozen, with water temperatures in the upper 50's.   Avila will be crowded but hopefully most of the Polar Bear swimmers from noon will have left and there will be some parking. As always, our swim plan and route will be determined on the beach by current conditions. 

niel

Sunday, December 28,2014

I was not at the beach so this report is by John Hampsey.


Swimming today were Pete, Rick, Tom, Stephanie, Bo, Amy, Dale, and myself. Niel was on vacation. Pete went in first and did his heroic bare-back swimming. The rest of us entered by the pier and swam south along the imaginary buoy line to just short of fossil point. The day was sunny, with a stunning blue sky and light wind. The water was clear and, according to our arterial Galileo thermometer, 57 degrees. Though the waves on shore were fairly small, there was a strong chop and current out at sea, especially as we headed from fossil point out to the end of the pier. At times my body felt toboggan-like crashing down between the chops of water. We stopped to gather at the end of the pier, except for Amy who apparently entered some kind of Zen-Proteus state and was about a 1/4 mile beyond the end of the pier when we hollered her back. Next we headed north toward the creek. I seemed to be the only one who thought the water smelled a bit funky the last 100 yards or so. Then, with the wind and current at our backs, we sailed back to the pier and walked out of the sea like gods. It was a great swim. The distance was 1.3 miles; exact swim-time unknown. 

Sunday, December 21, 2014

 It was a nice day for a swim at Avila Beach; sunny with high clouds and a 10 to 15 MPH offshore breeze.  The pier was closed because of the predicted high surf so I did not get a water temperature but the station at Harford Pier was reporting 61 degrees. There were occasional shoulder high waves between the 2 to 3 footers.  Dale and Sylvia watched our stuff while Stephanie, Niel, Rick, Tom and Amy headed out through the surf, swam down to the end of the sea wall and then to the end of the pier.  Amy and Stephanie headed in while Tom, Rick and Niel doubled back along our route. 

Kevin Watkins was out body surfing on the left side of the pier.  That is Kevin between Tom and Sylvia. 

I won't be at the beach next Sunday but Tom and Rick will be there to swim.

On New Year's Day,Thursday January 1, 2015, we will jump in the water at 9AM in order to avoid the crowds for the Avila Polar Bear Swim at noon.  The water should be warm (for Avila in January) but wear whatever is comfortable.

Sunday, December 14, 2014

There was high thin clouds and it was kind'a cool at the beach.  The waves had been big yesterday but were down to an occasional 4 to 5 footer today.  The pier was still closed so I could not get an 'official' water temperature but the NOAA station on the Harford Pier had been reading 61 - 62 degrees over the last day.  This is crazy warm for Avila Beach at this time of the year.  Last December I recorded one 56 degree reading with the other four being 53.  That is 8 or 9 degrees colder than this year!
The water looked OK but concerns about bacterial contamination after the heavy rains on Thursday evening keep us out of the water. My Blue Water Task Force volunteers collected their usual beach and creek samples on Thursday so we would have had some data to base our concerns on but a power outage in Avila Beach from Thursday evening until late Friday shut down the incubator at our lab and ruined all of the samples. The County will sample Avila and all of their other sites tomorrow.  Their results will be posted Wednesday at http://www.slocounty.ca.gov/health/publichealth/ehs/beach.htm.  
Niel, Dale and Rick sat on the beach and enjoyed the view. Rhonda, Jon and Roxy joined us.
Rain is forecast this coming week so we may not be getting in next Sunday either.  

niel 

Sunday, December 7, 2014

We had very nice swimming conditions at Avila Beach today.  Thin high clouds, no wind, almost flat conditions, 3 foot surf and an amazing water temperature for December of 61.5 degrees.
Swimming today were Niel, Stephanie, Tom Lorish, Amy, Dale, Rick and John Hampsey. While the water in the ocean was very clear the recent rain has created toilet like conditions in San Luis Obispo Creek (http://www.surfrider.org/blue-water-task-force/chapter/34) so we stayed on the east side of the pier, well away from the creek mouth. 

We covered 1916 M in a very relaxed 49 minutes, the warm conditions encouraging everyone to hang out at the turns and enjoy floating in the water. 

We have photos in the blog now because Santa came early with a Ricoh WG20, a very nice little waterproof camera.  Credit for my selection of this model goes to Rob, who having killed about half a dozen cameras of this type documenting his swim adventures found this model to be the most durable. 

niel