Saturday's Ocean Time

On Saturday morning, I met up with a group of Orange County open water swimmers for a swim from Corona Del Mar to Crystal Cove, about 3 miles. We carpooled from the Crystal Cove parking lot to CDM and were in the water at 7am. The swells were big, but the surface was glassy and we made the trip in about 1 hour and 45 minutes. Water temps have been holding just shy of 70 degrees and visibility remains a murky 5-10 feet. It was a great "short" swim to keep ready for this coming Thursday's swim. Thanks to all the swimmers, especially Jen Schumacher who will be a pace swimmer for me on Thursday, who did a nice pacing practice for the last mile!

I returned to the Pacific at 7:30 pm for a brief ocean kayak with Lynn Kubasek who besides being a pace swimmer for my Catalina swim, has graciously offered a couple of sea kayaks for the trip. We put in at Laguna Main beach in the dark after rolling the boats down to the beach from the house where they were stored. On the way out, a large wave caught us both a little less-than-pefectly pointed into the surf and we were flipped unceremoniously over and into the sand before being steamrolled by the kayaks. Wet, but determined, we timed the next sets a little better and got beyond the surf line and spent 20 minutes confirming they were ready for 10 hours in the Catalina Channel. The moon came out a few minutes into the paddle and it was so bright I thought we were being spotlighted by a vehicle from shore. We turned around and in the big surf coming in, the waves decided to have some fun with Lynn again, upsetting the kayak and pulling the headlamp from her head. We chased the glow in the surf for a few minutes in hopes of recovering it, but it disappeared. That is the second time in as many weeks that the waves at Laguna Main Beach have decided to keep a souvenir as we exited the ocean. Lynn, thanks for all of your help today!

I also want to give a special thanks to my family- especially Ellie for all of her understanding and support.