We gathered at the foot of Hyde Street at about 7:00am today.
After fooling around with parking..... and finally finding a 4 hour spot, I went down the docks to the Dauntless with Pedro and company and 8 swimmers. The plan was to jump off the boat near Alcatraz and swim to St Francis Yacht Club. The same destination as the Escape From Alcatraz. The Tides were ebbing -- the start of a 3.5 knot ebb at the mouth of the bay was at about 5:00am, so we jumped into a pretty swift current. The water felt COLD.. I immediately knew that I should have worn three caps - two regular latex caps with my Barracuda Hot Head in between... at least I remembered ear plugs and I was wearing a new pair of goggles, so sighting would most likely be easy.
I jumped in second and started swimming after the person who jumped first.. I soon lost sight of him.. but the blue zodiac support boat was on my left.. I wanted to keep it that way. I headed towards the Fontana towers at Aquatic Park.
After about 20 minutes, the towers and Aquatic Park were to my left.. so I shot for Fort Mason. I stopped to look for my fellow swimmers several times, but really couldn't see anyone else -- just a few fleeting glimpses over the waves.. Did I mention, the water was choppy??? Very choppy and very cold. As I got closer to the shore, I was also closer to the St Francis -- but I was so cold that I wanted to just get out at the first little beach at the end of the breakwater by the Wave Organ .. (Coughlin Beach???) -- so I started to head there. I was almost to the shore when the Dauntless came by and motioned for me to head to St Francis.. I thought.. dang.. I'm really cold, but it's an ebb, so maybe I can just glide there... Not the case.. I was too close to the shore and rocks to catch the ebb, I was in an eddy not really moving much at all. But the good news, was... the water was shallow.. I stood up and thought I'd just walk over to the Yacht Club.. But the Dauntless came back - motioned for me to come out to the boat.. so that's what I did.
Right after getting on the boat.. I realized that I was actually very very cold. Luckily there were extra blankets and coats -- still I couldn't stop shivering.. I couldn't stop thinking about Lynn Cox swimming in below 40 degree water with just skin... and here I was in 55 degree water, 2 caps and a full wetsuit shaking and chattering....what a whimp! I finally went below, where there was some heat.. and felt.. much .. much better...
Lesson here -- bring warm clothes on the boat for after the swim... and wear 3 caps in the winter.
All in all, it was a great morning adventure and I think everyone had a blast! Thanks to Waterworld Swim and The Dauntless and Hammernutrition (4 Race Caps, 4 Premium insurance caps, 2 Mito caps, 1 Super AO, 1 Tissue Rejuvenator and 1 Zobaline with breakfast before the swim).
