A friend passed this to me - he knows somebody who worked the bay swim as a
kayaker. Provides an interesting perspective for the swim.

----------<start excerpt here>----------------
Subject: Bay Bridge Swim

The monk said it well about Saturday. Today's paddle was very
challenging to say the least. Great conditions - WIND, CURRENT, WAVES
and 600 SWIMMERS. Crash and I were part of an 8 kayaker team and were
responsible for covering from the 3 mile marker to the 4 mile marker. At
the start of the race the current kept pushing the swimmers North
against the Westbound span and we had to keep herding them to the South.

Once we got to the center of the spans the current had shifted and it
was driving the swimmers South. I mean BIG TIME South. If you go outside
the vertical plane of the spans, you are disqualified and you get pulled
from the water.

This current started pushing people South of the
Eastbound span and they had to be taken out of the water by rescue
boats. I happen to be at this point when all of this is going on. I came
upon a guy hanging on the horizontal wood ties attached to the bridge
center support. I tried to get the bow of my kayak to him and just as I
got close a wave came and pinned me against the horizontal wood ties.
Then because of the wave action my bow starts to go under the wood and
it took some major back paddling to get away from that pillar.

Now a seakayaker comes and he gets slammed against the pillar. That guy came
away from that pillar white as a ghost. I hope I had a little more color
than he did. So now we get ready to throw him a rope and he makes a leap
off and gets a hold of my bow and we start backing away. Now while all
of my attention is focused on this guy on my bow a girl grabs onto the
side of my boat and scares me half to death because I thought I was
going over. She was scared shitless. They tell the swimmers not to grab
the kayaks like that but this lady had had it. After I calmed her down I
gave her a flotation cushion and told her that I would be right back for
her after I got the guy on the bow to a boat. She didn't wait and
floated to the boat using that cushion.

Now this guy on the bow doesn't want to quit so I start paddling him back
between the bridges(which weweren't supposed to do - we could let them
hang on to rest but we werenot to assist in moving them) and the boat skipper
yells to me he is
disqualified and had to be taken out. Boy was he pissed. I finally get him
to the pickup boat and retrieved the
flotation cushion and it was back between the spans. This skipper had
about 5 swimmers on board including these 2. Once inside the spans I saw
a girl sort of struggling so I made my way over to her. She said she was
sick and I asked her what she wanted to do? She's treading water and
she's crying and she's telling me that she's sick and she sticks her
head in the water and starts swimming. She stopped a few more times but
wouldn't quit. I said that I would keep an eye on her for awhile. Then I
see a guy behind her about 60 yards that needs some help. When I get
back to him he said that he needed to rest and he grabbed onto the bow.
I had to paddle him back between the spans because the current was
carrying us south. When he cast off I headed forward because I still had
to get between mile 3 and mile 4. I lost sight of the girl who was sick
and I couldn't find her. I felt guilty about that. I told the other
paddlers that I passed about her situation and she was in this bunch
somewhere. She was wearing yellow cap numbered 215. I'll have to check
the website to see if she finished or had to be pulled. My gut says she
was pulled.

I didn't see much action between miles 3 & 4 where you would
figure the swimmers would be tired. I had one lady that was having leg
cramps and she hung on for awhile so she could massage her legs.

Nothing like a casual Sunday paddle. It was rough out there and there were some
tense moments. I asked the kayaker coordinator how the conditions
compared to past swims. He said that it was rougher than the past few
years and that it was about all that we could take out there in the
center. If it would have gotten any worse things would have gotten
really interesting. I wonder what he meant by interesting. I already
thought it was interesting. I must say that our boats performed very
well in those conditions.