North Shore Fire and Rescue--get a room!

 Next Swims: Sunday- 7am, 8am, noon, and a FULL MOON SWIM at 8:10pm

Last swim: Saturday, noon

Air Temp: 83

Water temp: 68 ( 69 from Itch, 67 from the rubber ducky), but there was a lot of cold water lingering under that. At one point, Itch measured that colder shelf of water to be at about 58 degrees. 

Waves: Choppy, generally disorganized 1-1.5 footers

Clarity: pretty clear: 9 /10

Kru: Capt'n, Itch, Diablo, Moondawg, Dave, Neo, Blake, Crabby Abby, Peaches, Super Hera, Magic Mike. An extra Triathaloner came as we were getting out, suited up, and headed out for a swim. 

Shore Support: Neo's two chips-off-the-old-block, aka, collectively, spawn o' Neo.

For the last three days, the good people of the North Shore Fire and Rescue teams have been at Klode. Thursday, and Friday, they were running training sessions and preparing for the future. 

Here are some random beachgoers struggling to remove a dummy from the water on Friday. It is not apparent how or why the dummy was in the water, but it is suspected that it has something to do with NSFR.

Today they appeared to show for more immediate concerns. A beachgoer was not feeling her best: lightheaded, short of breath, etc. She appeared to be in very good hands and was helped from the beach by these fine public servants. 

But all that is prelude to why we are really here. The noon swim down at the beach! The sun shone; the waves tossed lightly; the Kru swam south into the chop. Some, like me, stopped short of a trip out to flatrock. A decent contingent went on to that destination and returned en masse to initiate the beach change, gather around the Capt'n as he benevolently dispensed the nectar of the gods, and raise one toast to another good swim and another toast to some well oiled joints (Itch provided a second round to those so inclined). 

I swam over a very large school of smallish fish on my return trip. I was speaking with Dave about our swims and mentioned it to him-- I think he called it a bait ball. Which I took to mean a school of bait-sized fish swimming closely together in a ball. It was a big ball. Big enough to actually darken the water around me as I swam through them.  Pretty cool. 

Lastly,  consider the full moon swim tomorrow night. Arrive at 8:10 pm. Greet your friends. Get into the lake and swim out to see the full moon rise at 8:20. Then, acting like a bunch of pagans, do all sorts of unaccountable things before coming back to shore in the dark, pretending like it was just another swim. In fact, you'll know you did something special and transcendent. Lucky you!