Beautiful, but chilly, glad for the jacuzzi kinda day...

Someone Died Out At The A Buoy



It's Lobster Season...Be Safe




Pretty Kelp




The Great Pumpkin Riseth




A Plethora Of Perch (I think that's what they are)



Sunset At The Shores



A Shrimpy Stand-Off

spent a week writing on blogs, swim federation logs, cards, work comp position papers and other stuff.  Normally would not send you off to another site, but Tuesdays swim was freakishly fantastic...had a face off with a shrimp! 

To read about it, click here:

SharkBait Chronicles

Have missed you all tons and totally jealous of your fab swims...hope to sea you soon

Marta (sharkbait)

I ALMOST FORGOT! giant white sea bass!

SATURDAY! how could i not post this? swim report for saturday, dd, the mc's, ralph who is so the man, alexis, lftc swam in calm and pretty clear seas, cold at 62 but it felt so good after a week off. the wetsuited and finned sped off to the marine room, bill sped off to the ..maybe the pier? this time diana checked her course and came back to us, last time she follwed him and added a 1/2 mile to her swim.  near the marine room we turned back and so lucky were we! a giant white sea bass, maybe about 4' long, swimming shallowly and slowly, we were able to swim with him for several minutes until he dove for kelp, he was awesome and his little dark flippers were so adorable, i wanted to pet him.  poor claudia had to sit out and watch due to her nose surgery (totally cosmetic) but we were able to have a lovely lunch in old town (my new digs, very soon).  all in all an awesome swim with the best crew on the planet! powerful kismet has brought us together, the giant white sea bass is evidence that we are all meant to swim together! this is random but i maintain that this time we have at the cove is ours, we put our mark here and leave it for all of time, we are indelible. like sharpie ink..
lftc-out

sik! or is it sick?

swim report monday noon, lftc, loli and paul (paul sometimes swims with us, no wetsuit, no goggles guy) swam out in a lonely sea, not one other swimmer out and TOO BAD! why? i'll tell you, little curious ones: grey skies, some drizzle, cool weather and the too bad? total viz, that's why, awesome viz, viz to the nth degree, viz up the butt, sik viz! ( i told bill that i had to work on my street cred lingo, just ignore me when i do this) flatness and utter calm, smooth as silk seas, a little cold at 61 degrees but we rocked the swim to the 1/2, which has bobbed to who knows where, it's so off course these days.  we saw every living thing under the sea today, you could count the rocks, see the kelp swaying, gaze at the little fishies out in force. when we came in we had some bratty sea lions surrounding us and still not a swimmer in sight. TOO BAD! unlike some of my beloved swim pals, i won't say it was the best swim EVAR but it was pretty darn SIK! going to do it again tuesday, i'll be sure to post some bragging, um, i mean reports for your enjoyment.
lftc-out

Smooth, clear and calm... and a little grey

This weekend brought really calm, smooth-as-silk, water that was amazingly clear.  The water would have looked clearer had there been a little more light -- as in, where did all this fog and greyness come from?  Saturday was a great swim with LFTC, Diana, Ralph, Alexis and the MCs blitzing to the Marine Room.  We lost a few as we swam around looking for leopard sharks...LFTC, Diana and Ralph headed back. They spotted a giant white sea bass on their way to the cove.  We saw a couple of leopard sharks  at the Marine Room and lots of yellow tail (a personal fav) and then blazed back to the cove.

Sunday, Leonard was the only other brave sole that was willing to walk 3 miles to park in La Jolla on the CAF day. We did see Doug when we got back to the cove, but most regulars were staying away from the busy cove.  Still, we had a great swim, even clearer than Saturday, and glassy as pool  with no one in it... and there weren't many swimmers out either. Swam to the Marine Room again and saw lots of leopards and yellow fin (BIG ones!).  Great fun! The water temp both days was from 62 to 65ish... nice!

Hope to see more of you next weekend!
~mer-cari

Thank you Talya!

Talya and Lenya(?) baptized me in the bioluminescence tonight. It was the blue light special in the cove at dark. We started for the half at 6:00 under heavy marine layer. Red tide was thick to the Q, then cleared to the half. Water temp was a cheeky 61 degrees (below my official wetsuit threashold temp). But I was unprepared and swam in a rash guard instead. Which made for a quicky swim. Too quick to experience the full impact of the glowing red tide, according to Talya. So we retreated to the hot tub for 10 minutes, then went back out! By that time it was much darker, and the blue glow was brilliant. Wow. Thanks, Talya, for insisting that we make the best of this evening!

we want to swim with yous and we wanted to swim with thems guys (texting while driving)

swim report for our beloved and deeply missed cami and everyone else, (also deeply missed)sunday, noon: lftc, dd (the yous) the mc's and leonard (the thems guys) head out in mostly cloudy weather but not too cold and mostly cloudy seas but not too red and juicy. we were all so happy to be in regular zero viz murk and not the deep red v-8 juice of late. oh how the mighty have fallen! gone are the days of wishing for viz, sun, warm water and flatness. we have been reduced to being thrilled to swim in non infectious seas, period. we had a cool rythym, like floating on a pool floatie with lots of people playing and doing canon balls, up and down rolling and side to side rolling. it was awesome fun although we split up immediately with bill headed off into somewhere and dd following suit. leonard and i stuck together and cary was blazing to the marine room as planned. cary is so good! she's just good. we hung out with some leopards for a few minutes then head straight back where once again we split off. more rock and roll, 65 degrees, lots of kayaks, very few swimmers but some of us are way more hardcore than others. (not me, i just went because diana said we were going and she's a rarity, like the turtle) our hottie lifeguards teased us about their anti red tide dance which was going to be spectacular, they were busy guarding us so no dance, darn. we hung out in the jacuzzi, made alcohol related plans and said good bye, until we swim again! oh, for those of you who want to swim weekdays with bill at ohmygod 6am, give him a call. be sure to let me know how that goes.
miss all of yous that couldn't make it today, you are running out of excuses so you better get on it and get in.

Smooth, calm and not so clear...

We had a great swim, though, as Bill said, the viz was, well, NOT horrible... so there you have it.  Not horrible, not clear, but we did swim!  The red tide has been way too fond of the cove... The life guard posting on the board was perfect:  Swim: smooth, calm, warmer and brown...

We headed off to the quarter with our new swim friend, Daun who's training for a triathlon and Hove from the Cove, Hovik -- a real treat.  Daun headed back at the quarter, we sliced through the brownish haze to the half, then Hove headed back to the cove... 

It was patchy, but not as dense after we left the half and headed to the Marine Room. It was actually clear there, so we swam along the shores for a while, greeting a couple of leopard sharks. Finally we headed towards the caves and back. Toni was right, it was much clearer all the way from the shores along the caves than out at the quarter and half buoys.  We got buzzed by a life guard jet ski that nearly ran us down over towards the caves...  had some excitement... the grey clouds melted away and it turned out to be a lovely day.

Hope to sea ya' Sunday at noon!!!
~mer-cari

Red, Red Go Away, Come Again...well not today

Friday murk report.  Still much red tide everywhere.  Spotty close to the caves and white house.  I swam with Jenny and Kara through it all.  Very thankful to have met them at the water's edge.  I wasn't looking forward to going it solo.  We swam a fast round trip to the Shores.  So weird swimming up to the beach and never even seeing the sandy bottom.  We swam blind until we were in calf-deep water.  Seriously?!  Then we just stood up.  The fog was rolling in so we decided not to hug the caves and got back into the swim lane instead.  I don't know why that was a good idea.  We should have hugged the caves.  The water was a little clearer over there. (See photo taken from the trail.) It was all good though.  Warm water, at 65-66.  Calm, like Lake La Jolla.

big fat swim report

big fat swim report, wednesday, noon, claudia & lftc raced to the cove due to claudia's pressing thingy, something about a job, meeting, i don't know, some kind of thingy that she had to attend ON TIME! so i race down the 5 in my mini, music blaring to get my groove on, windows open for the bracing breeze (candy wrappers flying all over, dust drying out my nose and lips, bad plan, the windows open) and i make it! to no claudia and a deeply dirty cove, foam all over, the smell was overwhelming and the red tide was pretty thick. awww! claudia arrived and we raced, again, to the shores, looked around for gita who was looking for me, couldn't find her and finally got wet. oh the relief! pretty clean water, not much red but not really clear either, swam to the marine room and encountered murk so we headed to the pier. the swim was generally excellent, it felt so good to swim hard after a few days off. claudia is amazing and powerful, she really is part fish! the sun was hot and shining, the shores were crowded today, parking was tough. so there you have it, swim peeps! not a whole lot but you have read the skinny on the big fat swim for today. speaking of big and fat, while i was not swimming, i was trail running, allow me say the 3 words that sum up my entire running experience: industrial strength panties. it says so much, doesn't it? i know, i sell the sexy..
lftc-out

You all missed out Tuesday night...

Talya and her friends Charlie and Lena and I went out for another night time red tide swim.  Only this time, as we were making our way to the quater mile buoy, we had the sun setting on one side and the full moon coming up over the hill on the other side.  All at the same time.  And of course the water glowed blue again once it was dark.   We might go out for one more red tide swim at night next week.  No camera to take pics this time.

nice...leopard Sunday

Toni was tough!  Leonard, Tayla, and the C's were all in wetsuits, but not our Toni... you could see Toni was happy to be out in some water that wasn't ewwww, red! Great swim off the quarter again just to see if things were clearing any more (not much) then over to search for the BIG leopards with Leonard.  They did NOT disappoint... many, many of those cute spotted sharks were out again to greet us. We even petted them and they let us... I'm guessing they're finally getting used to those human things swimming around in their water!  Great day like Saturday only not as clear... Saturday was the clearest I've seen the shores in MANY moons... fun times, thanks for the great swim!

Post swim walking, south of Children's pool... gorgeous day!

~mercari

Turn right at the quarter mile buoy...

Then head to the Marine Room where the clearest, cleanest water surprised Laura enough to call it Bahama-mama swimming!  The temps weren't quite that (62ish), but after the redness of last Sunday, we were  just glad to see something besides rust-brown water!  Great swim with LFTC, CFTC, Wendy, Diana, and the MC's -- ready to hit the water and see the sea to see if it was clearing up... sweet swim with leopard sharks (so clear and so many sharks) a plenty at the Bahama-mama shoreline... happy to try again on Sunday.  LFTC nearly crashed into a very large sea lion (truly a near-miss!) -- BIG surprise! You just never know what you'll nearly run into or who... we met Augusto from Chile at the quarter mile and gave him our swim friend list... always fun to add new swim peeps.

No promises on tomorrow's water -- we all saw the red tide looming out past the A and B buoys... could roll in like it did last weekend... just sayin'...

Beautiful day for a swim!  Here's hoping tomorrow is good too...

Malta, Sicily, and Ischia Swims

Taormina, Sicily

Ischia, thermal island delight!

Ischia Island views off Naples

Saint Angelo Beach, Taormina, Sicily

Malta -- attack of the killer fish spa.  Fun times!

Malta,  view from our hotel room on high...

Malta -- Rocky beaches, beautiful swimming!

Taormina, Sicily views

All,

Here are some photos of our Malta and Italy trip. Lot's of nice water - 80 degrees and great visibility, but no fish bigger than a few inches. Can't have everything.

One incident we didn't mention. Cary was attacked by a swarm of hungry fish in Malta. See attached picture for details.

Bill

Big RED!



Red Tide, La Jolla, California....

Check out these whales poking holes in the Red Tide. Aerial photos over La Jolla:

http://deepseanews.com/2011/10/blue-whales-in-a-red-tide/



THE RED TIDE AND YOU..YOU'RE SOAKING IN IT.

La Jolla Shores Ewww.

red and juicy lame-o swim report: the group met on deck today and what a group! cami, marta, dianadarling, wendy, phoenix, lftc, and the mighty c's. too bad conditions SUCKED! the deep red and brown v-8 juice just sat there, all defiant and recalcitrant, mocking us all with it's sub zero viz and heady smell. long discussions ensue, wtf? why? when? holy sh*t, gross, how? and so on. only the mighty c's declared bravery thus maintaining their might. they tried to convince us lesser swimmers to join them using their star power then resorted to food references to make their point. something about wheat and chaff, i had to ask which one i happened to be. chaff it turns out, the riff raff, the cast offs, the wayward, the flotsam! okay, whatever, i'm the chaff and the chaff was flotsam-ing away to the other side with the rest of the riff raff. what a huge disappointment! red! worser red! way badderer red! foam. no smell though so we pulled our claudia out of the red (who knew?) and then proceeded to drag her right back in because we had to go in. i was so warm from all the talking and the being compared to bread crumbs that i needed to cool off. the water felt pretty good and if you kept your eyes closed, it was pretty normal. claudia and i got out after about 10 minutes, dd and marta stayed with it for awhile. they're in the emergency room now. oh wait, no, they're okay. they both texted me, whew! anyway, so sorry about our red tide situation and so sorry we missed our group swim. it was so good to see everyone though, i have missed you all so much! and in regards to the wheat and the chaff: i love the wheat, i need the wheat and without the wheat there is no chaff! see? i can think positive if i put my mind to it. it's generally not my thing though so get it now..
let's try again next weekend!
lftc/chaff-out:)

Red, white and blues...

Or, you should have seen it yesterday!

So much for posting conditions...  Obviously, conditions don't really matter until you're there, in the thick of it, swimming through whatever you're faced with.... so, that's what we did today.  The mighty C's were out with no one... our A team went to the shores looking for better waters and there was none to be found.   I mumbled something to Laura about separating the wheat from the chaff... she called me wheat all day!  Ha...

As Bill and I mucked our way back from the Marine Room through the mire, we spotted Toni, braving the RED!  It wasn't an easy swim through the dark. Way to go -- all those braving the red sea!   We met new swim peeps today too. Daun and her daughter, Amber were there yesterday to see the gorgeous clearness that I wasn't misrepresenting AND she was back, braving the red tides... so we gave Daun our swim scoop and our blog address. Maybe we'll be seeing them in the days ahead.

Here's a pic of the red tide south of the cove... really red there too.  Bet there's some wild bioluminescence there tonight!

Seeing RED everywhere: red, white and blue day...

~mer-cari

Red is dead --- Nice to see in the sea again!

Red tide alert -- the little dinof's swam away -- hurray!

Gorgeous Saturday swim in pretty amazing water, considering Wednesday Bill said it was soup-like and we heard even Friday wasn't great.  We swam with Leonard and Amber to the Marine Room spotting a lone leopard shark, some bat rays, sting rays and lots of fun fisheys... Amber and I had the cutest harbor seal swim right under us, checking us out -- and we could actually SEE him... clearly and we could see the bottom!  Seriously, no red tide -- it was all washing out to see... Yippee!!!  Soweet!

Beautful sunshiney day and a perfect day for a swim.  Water temps are dropping (61) so let's get out NOW.

Such a gorgeous day for a swim!

Bill and I will be on deck at 11:30 on Sunday and hope to see some of our swim peeps!
~mer-cari