6 a.m. swims begin! "Is this fun?"

  Last Swim/Dip:  6:00 a.m. Tuesday, April 30

Next Swims: Friday a.m. - probably 6?  Saturday and Sunday noon

Water temp: 50 degrees F per Lydia the Tattooed Lady 

Air temp: 51, cloudy but beautiful (see photo below)

Kru: Lydia the Tattooed Lady, Showgirl, Lt. MJ, Fin-Fyn, Dragonfly

Waves:  Flat-ish, brown but clear.  Strong smell of coffee at midpoint, goose-stinky heading back.  Geese on beach looking smug

Shore support:  Wim Hofers Nahid and Mermaid Princess (yes, MP has crossed over!)  A La Mode with her running group

It started innocently enough on a random Monday with Lt. MJ's text post from Surf Captain that conditions would be "flat and fair" on the morrow.  Surf Captain is reliable enough, on occasion.  LT. MJ also noted that the Atwater Buoy 45013 was "on vacation" already - so early in the season!  Might as well believe Surf Captain.  They are all liars, telling you what you want to hear.

At the beach, conditions were indeed flat...ish.  Though the water temp reading was 50, it felt MUCH colder, imo. My hands in particular started cold and never warmed up.  Even my face warmed up enough to get somewhere past Garage.  

Showgirl, Fin-Fyn and I all arrived back to our blankets around the same time. I wasn't the only one chilled. We struggled out of neoprene and into dry clothes for at least 5 minutes in complete silence, finally broken by someone asking plaintively, "Is this fun?"  Hi, it's me, I'm the problem.  Fortunately Fin-Fyn laughed, and it was immediately  more fun.

TTL and MJ emerged a bit later, TTL declaring, "the trip back took about a million years!"  

Start of swim, Photo courtesy of Mermaid Princess

So early in the season, people's watches were acting up.  Lake Michigan and electronic things just don't always get along.  "Apparently I am still somewhere short of the Rock Pile," Lt. MJ commented a couple of hours later on this photo: