Saturday, September 19, 2009

Sludge Fest

Friday Afternoon:
Beach: Klode
Water temp: 73
Waves: Choppy 2-3ft from north
Water Clarity: Stirred up (cloudy turquoise blue)
Crew: The Patriarch, Robin, John, Capt'n

Saturday:
Beach: Klode
Water temp: 69
Waves: Choppy 2-4ft from the south
Water Clarity: Lots & lots of gunk (seaweeds) being pushed onto the beach
Crew: The Patriarch, Brad, John, Capt'n

Next swims: 11AM Sunday Klode

The near shore water at all 4 Klode beaches this afternoon was nearly as black as a cup of coffee. The result of thick globs of seaweeds being pushed ashore by the Lady of the Lake who appeared to be doing a little housekeeping this afternoon.

I would liken the experience to witnessing someone cleaning out the dust from their garage with a high powered leaf blower. If you got too close you were sure to get a face full of dust....get too close to the shore today and you risked getting splashed with a great big blob of sludge.

Just offshore, the Caribbean blue hue of the water temped us to swim out to it. The waves today were a bit bigger and more frequent then yesterday afternoon. An exciting swim adventure awaited us for sure.

We walked the plank at record pace today as the feel of several inches of sludge beneath our feet and the constant splashing of waves filled with seaweeds motivated us all to move quickly out towards the clearer water. As it would turn out though, the clear water was perhaps 400 meters from shore so we conceded at approximately 150-200 meters from shore and opted to swim in water that no longer was thick with sludge.

The swim down to south-south beach was slow but fun. The 2-4ft waves tossed us around and often times provided the unique opportunity to swim downhill and then uphill. The trip back was effortless....in fact I think The Patriarch mentioned that he'd didn't even swim a stroke opting instead to hoist his whiskered sail and catch a ride from a whopper of a wave. ...he did wave as he blew past me....or at least he claims.

Upon returning to shore the Lady of the Lake was kind enough to spit us out along with several more buckets of sludge....and a monster sized fish (salmon?) for us to snack on later.

Today was certainly a unique experience. Very rarely do we encounter anything but pristine water when we swim from Klode. Despite the unpleasant images portrayed by today's adventure I'm confident that they will soon pass. Encountering today's conditions certainly reminds us just how sophisticated the Lady the Lake can be. Warm one day, cold the next...crystal clear one day...

Looking forward to what the Lady of the Lake has in store for us tomorrow. :)

Hope to see you on the beach!

~Capt'n

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