Hope you all had a great holiday. I had some fantastic swims across
the state over the last few weeks. After finals I headed to Humboldt
County (visiting friends) and swam in beautiful Stone Lagoon. It was
49 degrees and yes I wore a wetsuit. Swimming with a wetsuit was so
warm that I could lull around in the water and admire the birds that
came to check us out and float around from shore to shore. Stone
Lagoon is brackish water (part salt/part fresh) and is separated from
the ocean by a sand spit and fed by rain and creeks. There is a
campground that we swim to and sometimes we swim to the ocean spit and
run across to touch the sand - which in the winter is always warmer
than the lagoon water. This summer a small group of Humboldt swimmer
are willing to do the 2-lagoon crossing - I'll tell you more about
that when it gets closer. Next stop was so. cal. Here I swam with
family and Michelle (thank you michelle) at Bayshore Beach. It's not
really a beach it's a canal of water that circles Naples Island in
Long Beach. So the water is very calm and at Bayshore beach is free
of boats. We swam along a string of fake x-mas trees with lights that
were floating in the water. The temperature was 58-60 degrees. Last
location was at Huntington Beach - again with Michelle. It was warm
and sunny and the water was 63. We rolled around in the friendly
waves of the shore break and swam between the pods for surfers and
boarders. Afterwards we went for a warming run down the beach. So
from extreme north (humboldt) to south (huntington beach) the holiday
waters were wonderful. The ocean temp variation was about 10 degrees
and the non-ocean temp on the coast spread was also about 10 degrees.
Hope you all had a wonderful holiday and I would very much like to
swim this weekend if anyone is interested.

EM (emily evans)