Nostradamus

Next Swims:  Sun 8am and noon, M-F 6am and 5pm

Last Swim: Sat Noon
Air Temp: 80?  Hot in the Sun
Water Temp: 53.7
Waves:  Chop and current coming from the South
Clarity: 8/10

Kru:  Skippy, Synchro, Little Fish, Smart Ass, Itch, Captain, Ziggy, Rosie, Sandy, Other Dave, Dan, Erick, Heinrick, Kahuna (and probably a few others I missed, add your name in the comments if I did).

Your humble correspondent predicted this on Thursday in the comments:

    Grab you wetsuits and cold water gear. The forecast is pretty much for winds out of the West over the next 10             days.  Expect the temp graph to drop like a rock. Clear, cold, calm is my prediction. Time for all these new Lake swimmers to see what Lake Michigan is more often than not like.

So it is written, and so it has come to pass. 

But did anybody listen?  Apparently not.  Most of the Kru came to the beach with nary a care or a wetsuit.  Perhaps lured into complacency by such false prophets as Magic Mike, who reported that the Saturday 8 a.m. swim was "Chilly But Not Cold," at 65 degrees.  I arrived down to the beach a few minutes late, and was told it was 61 degrees.  "Nah ba," thought I.  But then why were all those non-wetsuit wearing Kru members being so slow to get into the water, and why were some getting spit back onto the beach?  I put on my wetsuit, and waded in, thinking "this is not 61 degrees," and "I am happy that I put this wetsuit on."  

I enjoyed a nice swim down to almost downspout and back, with the return trip being much faster.  Post-swim I dug my thermometer out of the bottom of my pack, and watched the numbers drop like water down an open manhole.  The bottom hit at 53.7, something that was confirmed by Synchro and Skippy, and later (with the Itch-o-meter), by Itch.  (It was later reported that the person taking the pre-swim temp decided that he should pull the probe, before the readout reached below 60, so as to not discourage swimming.).   

So hats off to those who went skin and a pretty long ways in fairly Epic Conditions.  A shot was enjoyed by all afterwards.

   

Epic Cold Water Creates a Clone