Monday swim

More sun and visible horizon than we knew what to do with! Man it was a beauty day out there. Just Toni, Cami and Laura showed up for an all-girl swim. LFTC tasked me to blogg about today. I can only hope to half as entertaining as other bloggs; the bar is set quite high doncha-know.

Water temp was 58-ish with pockets of sun-warmed jacuzzis that soared to temp of...60. Practically geothermal I-tell-ya! Due to my lousy amber-shaded (free) goggles, I have no idea what the visibility was like. Based on my fellow mer-friends' commentary, all I can say is that it was only okay from the cove to the Q, then stellar from the Q to the white house. AND because of Cami's freakishly keen eyesight, she spotted the sea turtle in 15 feet of water (straight out from the WH)! WOO-HOO! We were like paparazzi on that turtle's tail. But with my piece-of-crap amber goggles all I could see was murk. Thanks to LFTC's naturally-gracious thinking, she took off her awesome goggles and offered them to me for a REAL look at the turtle and the viz.

Great swim today, ladies. I had to book it to the public shower where some lady was taking her weekly bath in that cold public shower. Her shower rivaled my 13-yr-old's epic daily showers. This was woman scrubbing herself before, during and after my shower and change. Must have been a dirty week.

birthday boys

we have two birthdays this month that i know of: steve, january 22nd and leonard, january 21. (i think, i could check the list but the clicking you know, it's exhausting) just a reminder to send a little birthday love to our friends! we love our friends, people!

stealth swimmers, full frontal booze

Swim report January whatever, noon: The Mighty C's, Leonard, Marta, Dianadarling, Claudia, LFTC met at the shores and somehow collected a girl from Colorado who wanted to swim with us (who doesn't) so we fixed her up and swam in shining sun, flat and glassy seas, clear and beautiful conditions, my watch read 60 the entire swim. Parted ways near the marine room, Claudia and I went turtle hunting, no turtle but snack fish and the sea floor made the departure from the group worthwhile. The rest went to the 1/4 to see our greatly missed cove. We all met alive and well and more than happy, I heard our CO girl got cold and went in but still had a manly swim to the 1/4, no pants! Awesome swim you guys!  Thanks to the MC'S for being the den mother and setting us up today in perfect weather. 
Commentary regarding the Polar Bear Plunge: I viewed the pics today on the swim club Facebook (see, I DO get on facebook) and notice two things in particular, we are the largest and very last group on the grass and the pictures show all the girls swilling hooch. We are either holding a cup (someone is holding TWO cups), about to drink or drinking. Posing with our cuppies even! A little eating is going on too. My thought is that our group is not so much about swimming, as there are no photos of us even remotely near the water, but more about lounging around on the grass getting hammered.   To this I say that we are covert swimmers but full frontal party people. Way to bring in the new year!
lftc-out

whompers!

swim report from the end of the world: fri. 10am, shores, lftc, claudia & ralph.. we all arrived at the shores early to watch the cliffs and cove, giant surf pounding the caves and cove, i mean really freaking big! not 7' surf but 10, 12, 15 foot stuff. at one point i watched a breaking wave eat the 1/4 at snack time. boomers was enormous and breaking so far out that it wasn't really boomers at all. don't forget about scripps! waves were breaking near the end of the pier, we knew because we were in line with the end of the pier and the waves were too scary to  swim further thataway. dammit. surfers were too inside to catch these bad boys, after that set, they swarmed out. anyway, we swam! tower to marine room back towards the pier but waves, you know. turned back and did that whole thing again. it was so fun and the waves easy south of the tower, we just walked on in to 58 degrees and sun! very clear too. we raced to the cove after our swim to check out the wave action, surfers were out, surfing dontcha know, jimmy and a few others out too. the guards had a physical barrier at the tops of the stairs saying run! run for your lives! too bad because i was so tempted! things peak tonight and slowly go down late saturday. go check it out people! 
lftc-out

LFTC to NOAA: suck it!

Here's a story: Early this Tuesday morning I received a stern warning from my sweet Claudia that there is a high surf advisory in San Diego, it was an official looking thing replete with menacing words like; pulses, rogue, severe, swells, rips, death, die, and even this blurb: be advised that while waters may look calm, the building NNW swell can produce rogue waves rapidly, especially dangerous near shore blah blah blah. I have no plans to swim ever again lest I perish in monster surf.  But then two things happened, Leonard emailed me all happy and carefree (does he not KNOW?) asking if I wanted to swim in the sun and Cami called me all excited and said she hoped I was swimming, it was beautiful, flat, lake like, glassy, calm and that I should go, that she was in La Jolla! She wasn't swimming but I should. (what a teaser)  So I decide to meet Leonard, to take my chances and if the conditions were doomsday like, I could bail and at least keep an eye on Leonard. I drive over and what do I see? Beauty, sunny skies, big wide beach and the water? Nothing, flat, barely a ripple, not even a ripple, like NO waves, like walk out chest deep without a splash and clear to the bottom, It was amazing, like a summer day. Man alive, the weather people are so wrong, NOAA is wrong, Scripps and Surfline are wrong. Leonard and Cami were right, THEY should do the weather. We swim from directly in front of the tower to the 1/4 and back to the tower via the marine room.  (Leonard has a thing about the tower, it has to be right from and right back to the tower and not one inch less)   A pretty decent swim distance wise, easy to relax in sweet conditions and no other swimmers out, we had the whole place to ourselves. My watch read 60 degrees, it felt warmer, especially the top. I did some floating around today, just loving the sun frying my face into leather. I do enjoy a good face fry.
I declare that Leonard is ALL THAT. That's his new nickname: Leonard is ALL THAT. 
Happy happy joy joy!
lftc-out

waves + r & j + cold + bump + fog = glorious 2011 finale swim

the last swim of 2011 for the no pants crew: the mighty c boy without the mighty c girl, dianadarling, claudia, ralph, janie, jaycee, lftc met in okay weather, some sun but not really warm, the sea looked surfy but not surfy enough to send me crying to the shores, so we venture off, really lagging. our wetsuits messing around in surf. wait, what? that's right, surf. d a m m i t . what kind of surf? the kind that jimmy canali could body surf, that's what kind. sigh.. we did a little ducking despite the waiting out sets, the waves weren't that big, breaking right near take off so at least the guards could get ME quickly but we did it, we made it out into absolutely no viz. we swam to the a after 5 minutes of where, why, who and what, claudia worried about incoming fog (jimmy too warned us about fog, holy cow, it's like a grimms fairy tale) so we halt there and see the incoming plague and head 'in'. none of us could really figure out where 'in' was, some head in to the caves and cliffs, some head in to the marine room but we all end up in the same place: in the waves. biggies, all clean and mean looking, sharp angles, smooth and steep faces. there is no point in panic at this point because why? because i have diana and she knows she cannot move forward without me, that i will sit on her back if i have to and she doesn't really want that so she uses care and knows what's up. anyway, jimmy is still messing around and he says, 'here comes my wave', we turn around and there it is! swim out, swim fast and i swim up the face and over, diana actually swam up, straight up and popped her head through the lip before it broke. jimmy goes blazing by which makes us look like sissies but i totally own sissyhood. i am the new face of sissyhood.  sissies are the new black. then we see flatness so i ask jimmy, all sissy like, if we can go in now and he says yeah, go in. and that my friends, was the last swim of 2011 for our crew.  so guess what? on my way home from near death (i exaggerate all the time, dave thinks that every swim i go on is a near death experience) i hear on the news that this coming week holds a high surf advisory, waves up to 8' and some 10' sets will be rolling in. my thoughts? of course there will be. why wouldn't there be? i expect it. whatever.
i want to say thanks to all my swim peeps, thank you for being an amazing part of my life in my otherwise rocky 2011, no matter waves, cold, red and juicy, weather, no matter swimming with me once or every time, thank you all. i can't imagine my life without you and look forward to a life of swimming with the most amazing swimmers anywhere. 
peace out! lftc

A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.

I feel so bad about what I'm about to report for this impacts Cami in ways that are too depressing to think about: swim report for Friday (geez, are we STILL in 2011? I'm so over it)  1pm, Dianadarling, Claudia, LFTC met in cool fog, some churning water but certainly we have swam in way, WAY worse so we plod down the stairs and stand in glacier temps for several minutes, thinking? Pondering? Asking god why?
It is intersting that tourists watch us, ask us where, how far, how cold, some applaud us, (one time, literally) or call us crazy or brave. Wetsuits wonder 'how we do it' and why? To all the questions: I have no idea.  Anyway, we finally get in and it's cold, f**king A cold which is the classification for the iciest cold we have, it's a mad dash to get to the warm zone, the 59 degrees jacuzzi that we all know is out there but when we get out there, lo and behold, no viz, none, not even 5' but who cares, we are out so swim we must. Diana and I lure Claudia further out than she wanted to go, bullied her really (we do that, you know. You have been warned) into at least a mile but it was getting darker and darker, we head to the caves for the same dark water and over to the 1/2 and oh no, RED. RED and JUICY. My immediate thought was, 'Cami will be so bummed and will not swim in this'. My second thought was, 'I'll lie to her to get her in'. But karma you know. Karma is a tough mistress, I know. So we agree to run away from the R&J and mostly play all the way back, passing Janie and crew on their way out.   Now that the swim is over I still maintain my ever present post swim statement: I'm so happy! So happy I swam, even now I couldn't care less about the R&J and again, we have all swam in worse. At least I was WITH people I adore beyond measure, people that I cannot live without (I guess I can measure adoration) and who share this craze. Kinship!
So there you have it, the truth which is like the dressing rooms in Macy's: harsh flourescent lights, warped mirrors, stark walls that hide nothing and either sweating hot or icy cold.
On the other hand, you guys missed Ken's naked show in the athletic club. I swear to you, he did a show in the athletic club, just for Diana and me (lucky us!) in which he , he,  he...took his shirt and underoos t shirt off and did some sagging and flexing and I couldn't look anymore due to being blinded. That's all I'm saying. You don't wanna know... Oh, one last little thing, you guys missed the senior citizen guy in the sauna stripping out of his Speedo and donning his underoos tighty whities. For realsies. What is this? What in the name of God is going on? 
LFTC-out