Sunday, January 24, 2016

It was sunny and comfortable at Avila with some offshore wind and the most surfable waves that I have seen there in many years.  It was just Tom and I today. The water temperature over at the post was 57 but my toes said 55 or less.  We swam out past the line of surfers and swam down towards the point and back. 

Tom

Niel

Tom as submarine man.

There is no rain predicted for this coming week so the water quality of the creek may clean up. Thursday's samples will tell.

niel

Sunday, January 17, 2016

Low tide was at 11 AM. The surf was 6' to 8' and the bacteria levels in the creek were very high on Thursday, so the stinky creek water would be held against the beach until sometime after high tide. This was a good time of day to stay out of the water away from the bugs. 
I saw Rick and Amy but nobody was going to swim. I had lunch on the beach and enjoyed the view.
We'll see how it is next Sunday. 

niel

Swimming This Sunday

I'm not sure about swimming this Sunday. Thursdays samples had a bacteria count at Avila Beach that was low, but the numbers from the creek mouth and up to the weir were quite high. Low tide on Sunday is at 10:59, so the ocean will just be just starting to push the bugs back towards the creek at our usual jump in time. There will also be a huge swell late Saturday, 12 to 15+ feet on the west facing beaches.  I'm leaning toward not but could change my mind if the swell lays down quickly. 

niel

Lots'a Bugs

My Blue Water Task Force volunteers and I went out early Thursday morning to collect water samples. At Avila Beach the combination of 8' to 10' waves and high tide had the wash from the waves carrying over the sand spit and into the estuary.

Every place along the creek and at the beach was over the state limit of 104 organisms/100ml. for enterococcus bacteria, which means human poop in the water. Some samples were in the 2000 to 3000+ range.  You can see the results at http://www.surfrider.org/blue-water-task-force/chapter/34.

There will be more rain Saturday. I'm not going in the water Sunday. If the surf is still up I may come down to watch the show. Maybe I'll see you there.

niel

Sunday, January 3, 2016

Today's post is written by John Hampsey

There were four swimmers today—Niel, Tom, Amy, and myself. The sky was gray and the water chaotic-looking. The predominantly north-east wind of the past 5 or 6 days was reluctantly giving in to a shifting south-east wind that was promising to bring rain. The breaking waves were large at times but tumultuous rather than linear. The four of us entered the sea slowly and eventually swam 1/3 of the way along the pier then turned left to head to the reef buoy. The rock and roll of the water, and the large swells, made for a challenging swim. At times it was hard to site. Next to the buoy I could feel the push and pull of the cross currents.

We decided to head for the end of the pier, which I thought would take us beyond the high swells. But it was Proteus’s day and the swells were rising and rolling even out past the pier, a rare condition. At that point we decided to head back to shore for what proved to be the most interesting leg of the swim because, even though we were moving in the same direction as the waves, the currents underneath were pulling back against us.

We were in the water for an invigorating 46 minutes. The water temperature was 54 degrees by the shore and probably 52 farther out. We swam about 4/5 of a mile and earned every inch of it.

New Year's Day, January 1, 2016

Rob and Allison were in town so Rob joined us for a nap on the beach and a short swim. Dave, with his cold, Kris and Sylvia (not in the picture) stayed on the beach while Rob and I went in. It was sunny and calm and the water was very clear but 52 degrees. 

 Nobody has seen this dance at Avila Beach in a while. 

 I got cold watching.

 We swam out to the end of the pier and came back in. 

Rob said that he was OK after he acclimated, my feet were freezing.

niel

New Year's Day Celebrity Swim

There will be a swim tomorrow. In the water at 10 ahead of the crowds for the noon Polar Bear Swim. Rob Dumouchel will be joining us southerners for some sunshine and warmish water.
I hope that you can join us.


niel

Sunday, December 20, 2015

Niel, Pete, Amy, Tom and John Hampsey swam today. I got a temperature of 54.4 in the ankle deep surf. There were some nice sized sets and smooth water outside. Tom and I went in first. We swam to the end of the pier, over to the buoy on the reef and back to the pier. Amy swam with John. I think they swam directly to the buoy on the reef and back. Peter did his own thing. 

 Tom getting in 

Peter (The Walrus) in his element 

 Niel and Peter

 An underwater shot of Peter. 

 Tom was a little late to ride this one. 

Can you see Tom?

I'll won't be swimming next Sunday but Tom and Peter will be there.

niel

Sunday, December 20. 2015

Sunday, December 13, 2015

This Sunday Avila Beach was gray and windy and I could feel the rain coming. The water was 57.5 degrees at the Avila Pier pier. The ocean was a mess; the smaller 2 -3 foot waves were coming out of the SE while the 3 - 4 foot waves were from the SW with a wind chop on top of it all.   

It was just after high tide and the surf and tide had pushed a lot of trash up onto the beach near the sea wall.  This is half of the plastic that I picked up just around where we sit. I would personally support a ban on detachable lids for disposable plastic bottles.  

It was just Tom and I today. Leslie thought that we looked very impressive getting in.

The bacteria count in the estuary and creek had been high on Thursday ( http://www.surfrider.org/blue-water-task-force/chapter/34 ) so I wanted to avoid swimming near the creek mouth.  To avoid the surfers Tom and I swam out along the west side of the pier to the end, then over to the lone buoy on the east side that is anchored on a reef and from there back to the beach. We covered .88 miles and gave ourselves credit for 1 mile + because of the conditions. 

 Simon says 'get in the water'.

Here we are at the end of the pier. 

Swimming out along the pier we were pushing into a lot of water and during the leg to the buoy I never did figure out which stroke and breathing scheme worked best with the conditions.

When Tom and I arrived at the buoy we meet up with a couple of locals who were hanging out having a very relaxed shell fish lunch. It wasn't easy to get their picture with the swell but that is two otters.

Tom and I doing out otter imitations.
We had the swell behind us on the way back to the beach so the last leg was the easiest and fastest. 

It started raining just as I got to my car. 

niel 

Sunday, December 6, 2015

That's Rick, John and Amy. We swam for about 30 minutes. I took a shallow water temperature from the pier and got a reading of 57, which felt about right. The water was very clean and flat with occasional waist to chest high waves. 

niel

Sunday, November 29, 2015

Avila Beach was a great place to on Sunday. It was sunny with an air temperature in the high 50's, no wind, and an ocean that was providing some waist high waves, mild swells and a water temperature that felt like the mid 50's. The buoys are gone so we are all navigating without their assistance with 'the end of the buoy line' now being an approximate spot in the ocean that is agreed upon while we are swimming.  We got off in waves today. Peter did his usual solo swim. Niel, Tom, Leslie started and were joined by Amy, Rick and John. With the staggered start the early starters wound up treading water while the second group joined up.  When we reached the end of the pier everyone was cold enough to head in. We completed .85 of a mile.

niel

Sunday, November 22, 2015

It was beautiful at Avila Beach today, both in and out of the water. Duke was up for some distance which was good with most of us so we plotted a one and a half mile route. It was comfortably warm on the sand with no wind and a flat ocean. The water temperature (over at the port) was 58 degrees. Swimming today we're Duke, Niel, Tom, Leslie, Sue and Danielle. Sue is from London, England and is visiting her lad who is attending Cal Poly.  She swims year round, without a wetsuit, at Hyde Park in a body of water called The Long Water/The Serpentine that is about 1.3K long.

 Our route was to swim to enter at the pier, swim to the left end of the buoy line, to the end of the Avila Pier, over to the third crossbars on the Cal Poly Pier, in along the pier to the second crossbars, and finally back to our starting point at the Avila Pier and in.

 Duke, Sue and Danielle as we're forming up at the first buoy.

Tom, Sue, Duke and Leslie and Danielle at the left end of the buoy line. 

 The water was nice and clear.

Duke, Sue Tom and Leslie at the Cal Poly Pier. 

The water temperature was all over the place today, warm near the shore, cold at the buoy line and then all over the place. On the leg to the Avila Pier and over to the Cal Poly Pier we were moving in and out of relatively warm and cold spots almost continually. I'm estimating that the total swing was 4 to 5 degrees.   

When we finished up I had 1.67 miles and Duke had 1.5. I don't know what happened there. I also had 9 minutes more than Duke but I record my total time in the water and he records swimming time.

Sue, if you are going to join us next Sunday I'll bring my kayak. If the conditions are favorable and you want to do a single Martini I'll accompany you. We can also just go for a swim. Post a comment to the blog and let me know.

Note, since the Avila pier has been closed I cannot get out to take an accurate water temperature at Avila Beach so I'm quoting the water temperature that is reported by the NOAA station in Port Harford, about 1 mile to the west.

niel