Sunday, August 20th, 2023

 

The Best of the Summer at Avila Beach -

The water temperature is holding at 61°. The water is getting a little murky and red/brown in spots but even at 11AM it was still flat and glassy.  There were pelicans and guls diving on bait fish on both sides of the pier.

Christopher joined me today for his first try at ocean swimming. We went down and back along the buoys on the right side of the pier. He enjoyed himself and I think we will see more of him. 

I swam from the first buoy to the Poly Pier, went out to the end of the pier and looped around to the end of the Avila Pier.  

Tom L. said Hi as we were getting ready to get in. He had just gotten out and was a happy camper. 

8/20/23 is the 20th anniversary of Debora Franzen's fatal encounter with a white shark while swimming at Avila Beach.

I will be on the road and not swimming until next Tuesday.  😞

niel

Saturday, August 19th, 2023

 

It was a beautiful morning in Avila Beach today. Swimming at 7 were Paula, Avery, Eline, Jodi, Niel and Terra. It was Terra's first time with us. She is doing the Santa Barbara tri in a few weeks and wanted to get in some open water time.

It was about 55° when we got in and 75° when we got out and very comfy at the showers.  The water was 61°, smooth and glassy with some occasional 4'+ waves. The water felt very comfortable when we were getting in. 

Terra wanted to do a mile so we started out with a 1,550M triangle. She went in at that point and after some discussion the rest of us swam the 1,000M directly to the end of the Cal Poly Pier. We came back in along the pier to the second crossbars, turned east towards an anchored sail boat to avoid the kelp and the otters that were closer inshore, turned left at the boat and swam back to our starting point. 

Tom L. says that he saw whales near Avila Rock when he was swimming yesterday morning.

Lucky guy.

  

I'll swim tomorrow at 11.

niel

Thursday, August 17th, 2023

 

After a week away I was back in the water this morning and it was great to be swimming at Avila again. The water temp was 61°, the air was 62°, the water was glassy and flat so the swimming was easy. 

Swimming down to the point and back to the other end of the buoy line seemed like the thing to do. It was short of my usual distance but it was what felt right this morning.

 I plan on being back on Saturday at 7 and Sunday at 11.

niel

Thursday, August 10th, 2023

The same gray, flat great swimming conditions this morning. I work up early, felt energized and got to Avila at 6:30 so I got started early.  With no wind and a 59° air temperature it was nice. The 58° water did not feel like almost 60°, more like the mid 50's.  The waves were their usual small selves except for a set of two 6 foot sneakers.     

There was a lot of house cleaning going on in my head and heading from the end of the CPP towards the reef buoy I was actually on course for the Avila Rock. If I had not passed close by the marker buoy for the end of the discharge line for the Avila treatment plant I might have made it to the rock before I got corrected.

 

 

I'm going to have to miss a few swims but I'll probably be back Saturday at 7 and Sunday at 11. 

niel

Tuesday, August 8th, 2023

 

It has gotten a bit busy around here. I did swim Tuesday AM and am just now getting around to posting. 

Tuesday morning featured heavy overcast, no wind, 59° and 58° water. Tom and I agree that the water swims more like 56°. Afterwards I was feeling the cold more than I should have. It must be the fog factor, the lack of sun and light making the water feel colder. 

I did a relaxing couple of triangles with a finish our and around the pier.

I'm swimming tomorrow at 7.

niel   

Sunday, August 6th, 2023

Summer's Back -

Just as easily as it slipped away last week summer came back today. With no explanation, the water temperature was back up to 59°. Avila Beach was sunny, 70°- 75°, with little wind and clean flat water with a bit of a swell. The swimming conditions were wonderful.  

I saw Tom L. along Front Street. He had just gotten out and said that it was sweet out there. 

Our group was Tom I., Jamie, myself and Dave. Dave is a surfer and a pool swimmer and this would be his first ocean swim. 

The four of us swam to the #4 buoy on the east side and to the end of the Avila Pier. Jamie and Tom swam to the end of the Poly Pier while Dave and I swam in to the #1 buoy on the west side. Dave continued in from there and I swam over to the third crossbars on the CPP in time to meet up with Jamie and Tom. We swam back to the end of the CPP, over to the end of the Avila Pier and in to the beach.  It was so nice out there nobody wanted to get out. 

Dave and Niel at the end of the Avila Pier.

The water really did look this nice today. 

Jamie, some of Niel's toes and Tom before Jamie and Tom swam over to the end of the CPP.   

At the second crossbars. Tom pulling by on my right and 

you can just see Jamie's orange cap in the background.

Tom was swimming over near the dog beach yesterday and stepped on a stingray.  He said that it was one of the most painful experienced he has ever had. He had to get out of the water. He has a knot on the top of his foot from the sting but seems to be feeling OK. 

    

I'm going to hang up my winter wetsuit for a second time and swim on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday mornings this week at 7 and next Sunday at 11.

niel

Thursday, August 3rd, 2023

 Winter Returns To Avila Beach -

I'm grateful to Tom Lorish for texting me a heads up yesterday about his Wednesday swim. He said that his toes told him the water temperature was 54°. This was hard to believe but Tom's Toes are pretty well calibrated. Forewarned, I wimped out and this morning came in my full winter swimming gear and was very glad. The water was 12°C/53.6°F according to my thermometer, toes, hands and face. A decent shock to my feet, hands and face getting in and just plain cold after that. Eight degrees is an unpresented drop over the four days since last 

Sunday.  Make me wonder if we are going to see any more 60's until some time in 2024.

Sunday, 62°, Tuesday, 58°, Wednesday, 54°, Thursday, 54°  

The Avila Pier is in the middle of this frame with a giant dragon on the left, or maybe it is some kind of shark jaw at my shoulder. 

It is fun the way the accidental framing of the previous photo 

allowed me to see the bumpers on the Poly Pier in a new way.

Other than the water temp the conditions were great and

very relaxing once I was sufficiently numbed up. 

Could it be even colder on Saturday morning?

I'll know at about 7:05 that morning.

niel

Tuesday, August 1st, 2023

The sharky signs are still up since Saturdays confirmed sighting of two sharks at Pirates Cove.  

I did the Yo-Yo on the west side. There are two yachts anchored in line with the routes from the number 4 and 3 buoys to the end of the Avila Pier so a bit of swerving is necessary.  

 

I was cold while swimming. I was cold last night too so I wasn't sure if it was me or the water. 

At the end of the Avila Pier I read 14.5°C/58.1°F.  That is enough of that. I hope we are back to proper summer water temperatures on Thursday.

Otherwise, conditions were the mostly the same as they have been; flat water, small surf, no wind, an air temp of 57° when I got in. The only change was the overcast that was thick enough to have it almost drizzling.  Everything was wet when I got out. 

I'll get in at 7 on Thursday.

niel  

Sunday, July 30th, 2023

 We had a nice summer day and a large group of swimmers today. At 11 the air temp was 75°, the water was 61° to 62°, it was sunny and warm but not yet hot and there was just a slight wind. 

Today we had Tom Lorish and Sue, Niel, Tom Israel, David, Jaime, Jaime's boyfriend, Pete and Richard.

Sue and Tom were already out in the water when I got there. I saw then go west then back east along the buoy line. I do not know where they had been before I saw them.

Sue got back in with her sister with the 11 o'clock group.  Richard is going to do the Santa Cruz (?) half later this summer and came with Pete to begin his ocean swimming education. Pete regularly swam with us sometime pre-COVID so it was nice to see him again. The plan was to do one or two triangles. Pete and Richard stuck to the east side of the buoy line.  Tom I. came in from the end of the pier on the second lap. He was going bareback to prep for the Maui Channel relay later this summer. Sue and her sister stuck to the buoy line. That left Jaime, David and Niel to complete the two triangles. When we finished the second triangle Jaime and David decided to go down the buoy line again. I came in.    

Counting me this is six of the eight at the last buoy on the left side. 

There was a spare pair of sandals on the sand when I was leaving. 

If they are yours let me know and we'll arrange a hand off.   

I'm planning on swimming on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday at 7.

niel

Saturday, July 29th, 2023

I was the only one swimming this morning. The conditions were prefect; sunny, 56°, 60° +/- water, calm with a bit of a swell. I was not sure how enthusiastic I was feeling so I selected a familiar and easy route; clockwise around the Poly Pier.  I did not feel that great until after the Poly Pier, where the kinks seemed to relax, my posture got better and the swimming felt good and easy.   

I'll be back tomorrow to swim at 11.

niel

For the time being there will be no notification emails when the blog is updated. I've lost control of the swimavila email account and cannot access the list of email addresses. Given some time I'm sure that I will be able to access the file and set up an alternate email account.     

Thursday, July 27th, 2023

My Birthday Swim, Six Months Late

On January 27th, 2022 I swam 7200 M for my 72nd birthday. On 1/27/23 the water was 5 degrees colder and full of bacteria because of the heavy rains, so the swim was put off until it came together which was today.   

Conditions were perfect today. It was 56°, overcast, there was no wind or swell and the water was 61.7°. I planned on swimming our familiar triangles route but I extended the legs a bit to try and make four laps come out to 7300M.  I was off a bit and had 7,600M on my watch when I finished the forth lap. I hung in the water a bit and thought that 400M more would put me at 8,000 and that sounded nice, so I swam to the end of the pier and back before coming in and finished up with 8,372M in 3:08.      

At the showers after getting out. 

Either I'm squinting into the sun or have a case of goggle face. 

The swim was great. My nutrition worked out right, I never had to fool with my goggles or any of my gear and the water felt nice. It was still flat at 10 when I got out. The sun came out at about half way, which was nice, but the clouds came back in.

I want to thank Scott Kolofer, DC, for the great tune up yesterday. I felt all lined up and running smooth when I started swimming.

I spoke to Paula and her daughter before I got in. We did different routes.

I'll swim Saturday at 7. Maybe Jodi will give me a tow.

niel 

Tuesday, July 25th, 2023

 At the reef buoy. 

Unusual water conditions this morning, There was no wind, the water was clean, 60° and looked pretty flat but there was a sneaky swell out of the SE, similar to what we get in the winter when a storm is building.  At 7 it was like a small chop with a very short period but a lot more push than a wind chop. It built up as I swam getting larger but keeping the same short period, so it was more difficult to swim in. Near the end of my swim it got easer because the swell had grown in size to the point where I was starting to ride up and over it instead of getting slapped around. I could still feel the push of each swell. 

The warm water was nice so I did a third triangle, which took almost 2 hours of swimming and is my time limit if I don't bring some nutrition along.  At the end I felt like I was still swimming well but my brain was getting grumpy, a sure sign for me that I'm running out of fuel.

I'll be back Thursday at 7. I think I'll bring a bottle to tow along and see if I do better at this distance with some fuel during the swim.

To tow a bottle during a swim I use an Ultimate Direction bike bottle, an old one that has a large ring cast into the cap. I thread one end of a piece of ski rope through the ring and the other end around the nylon belt I wear to hold my camera and thermometer. The rope is about 6' long so the bottle is back there past my feet and I barley notice it.

If I'm staying along the buoy line I can use this rig with a snap to tether a couple of 32 oz. bottles to one of the swim zone buoys and tank up every time I pass by.  

    

niel  

Sunday, July 23rd, 2023

Summer Comes To Avila Beach -

Today is the first day when it really felt like summer at Avila Beach. At 10:30 it was 70° with high broken clouds, there was a fog bank over the hills beyond Port San Luis that wrapped around to the south, the beach was crowded but not holiday crowded, the swimming conditions were great and the water was 16°C/60.8°F at the Poly Pier, which I last measured in September 2022.

Jeff Reid, David Cheney and I swam at 11. This was Jeff's last swim at Avila until next summer as he and his family will return to New Zealand tomorrow where it is winter.

We decided to swim for a bout an hour and possibly go further if it felt good. A loop around the Cal Poly Pier would be about 3200M and give Jeff some drop off points if he needed to stick to his schedule. 

There were more than the usual number of people in the water. While swimming out to the buoy it was definitly warmer than yesterday, even allowing for it being sunny and warm vs yesterday at 7 when it was foggy and cool. I wasn't surprised when I measured 61°.    

Niel. David and Jeff at the end of the CPP.

Things got a bit bumpy on the way out along the pier and there was a rolling push and chop on the way to the end of the Avila Pier. 

David and Jeff at the end of the Avila Pier. 

We swam over to and swung around the reef buoy and came back along the buoys to our starting point. The chop was well up now and I thought this leg was the roughest of the conditions today. The chop was head high plus and there was an occasional swell that would roll me around.

Jeff swam around the Avila Rock with Tom Lorish in the morning earlier in the week. Being the gracious host Tom picked a route that went down to Fossil Point and out to Avila Rock through the kelp beds.

I'll swim at 7 on Tuesday and Thursday.

niel

Saturday, July 22nd, 2023

 At 7 AM on Saturday there was nothing new about the swimming conditions, with flat 59° water, small surf, no wind, and foggy, but there were two faces that were new to me.  Two of Paula Dooley's swimming buddy's joined us. Eileen and Avery have been swimming at Avila with Paula and I think both of them were part of the Trans-Tahoe team with Paula last weekend.      

We swam to the 4th buoy on the left and to the end of the Avila Pier, checked out the visibility and swam to the third crossbars on the Cal Poly Pier. Then to the end of the CPP (a first for Avery), back to the second crossbars, to the end of the Avila Pier and in.  Towards the end of our swim the sun started peaking through and the water began to get bumpy so the wind was already picking up offshore. 

We had a great swim.

Paula, Eileen, Avery and Niel getting in.

I'll swim at 11 tomorrow.

niel

Tuesday, July 18th, 2023

 

I had a wonderful swim this morning out to the Avila Rock. Approaching the rock I swung quite a ways to the south to avoid the kelp beds and instead of circling around I came back by the same route.  It has been a great spring for the kelp and the kelp beds between the Avila Rock and Fossil Point have grown to the point that there is no open water left to swim through. 

There were high scattered clouds, the water temperature was 58°, the air temp was 61° and there was no wind at 6:50 when I got in.  

I'll swim at 7 on Thursday morning.

niel