Swimming
Dave and I have been keeping active this month. On the 7th, we did our second organized practice swim on St. John, gearing up for the Beach to Beach Power Swim. The second practice swim gave swimmers the option of swimming 1 mile or 2.4 (previously identified as a 2.25 mile swim). Once again we hopped on the 6:30am ferry to St. John and got a ride to Maho Bay. This time one of my coclerks came along for the swim. He's a runner but wanted to see if he could do the swim. All but one of the 17 swimmers opted for the 2.4 mile practice. It was a pretty nice swim. Didn't bother with buddies this time. The swim from Cinnamon Beach to Trunk Bay seemed really long to me though. I think partially because I was under the impression that Trunk was the next beach after Cinnamon. In reality, Cinnamon is pretty long and somewhat divided up, so from the water it looks like multiple beaches. Also there are a few small quasi-private beaches before Trunk. I was in the lead of a pack so I didn't have anyone to follow, which always makes it a little difficult (I'm sure speedy Dave can relate!) but a support kayaker was somewhat nearby and would point me in the general direction. It seems like there is always a V in the distant hills to look for during these open water swims here...
I saw a turtle, plenty of fish, and some pretty coral, but not much else along the way. A few people saw a shark. I have not yet had my first shark encounter here but I'm sure it will happen sooner or later... Dave finished the practice first in about 55 minutes and I came in at 1:14, with maybe 5 people in between the two of us. After finishing the 2.4, a couple people decided to swim the last portion of the race course on their own - another mile. I definitely felt up to it, but we'd already made arrangements to have our stuff dropped off at Trunk. One of the race volunteers gave us St. Thomas folks a ride back to Cruz Bay - all six of us fit in the back of her little pickup, barely.
Last Sunday was the final practice swim, and we could do 1, 2.4, or 3.5. We're both going to race the 2.4 mile distance. Since my friend Debbie will be on island for the actual race and has signed up to volunteer for it at Trunk where Dave definitely wanted to finish, I was fairly easily convinced to sign up for that distance too. It was tempting though to go for the 3.5, since we don't get many opportunities to have kayak support and do long swims like that.
We had a good practice swim - Dave got the same time as the last practice but this time he swam farther because the kayakers told him the right route. I swam the same course as before and shaved 6 minutes off my time. On the actual race day, they'll have buoys out to mark the course. I'm a little wary that we'll show up for the race and the course will be a little different than what we've been swimming. I just don't want it to be longer than I'm expecting!
Two weekends ago Dave and I had planned to swim from Cinnamon to Maho and back to practice. That stretch seems pretty safe to do without any kayak support; that is, there would probably be no boats that would interfere with us. But rather than race to catch the ferry (the lines at K-Mart always take longer than you'd think....), we decided to try to swim from Sapphire Beach to Lindquist Beach (both on St. Thomas). Lindquist Beach is only accessible by water (or by trespassing). We tried swimming to it a month or two ago but there were some jet skiiers in the water that were a little too close to where we'd have to round a corner.
This time though we got there by 10 a.m. so we figured any jet skiiers would still be sleeping. We made it successfully around the corner that stopped us last time. There were maybe 5 or 6 hours out there with a fabulous back yard "pool" that we were swimming in along with some beautiful coral and interesting fish. We could see Lindquist Beach - it looks nice and very uncrowded! Unfortunately, we got caught in a rip current. It was very bizarre because the rip tide was going against the waves which were going into shore! We tried swimming parallel to shore but I was barely moving anywhere. I think we could have gotten through it eventually but since we were so far out I was afraid of wearing ourselves out and not being able to swim back. So, we just turned around and headed back.
It was still a good 45 minute swim and we saw lots of pretty coral and a cute little turtle. The previous day at Sapphire, we saw a really huge ray that was very cool looking. Dave had found an underwater disposable camera floating along (with no photos taken yet) so I convinced him to take a photo of the ray with it before we turned in the camera to the lost and found. I hope the island visitors who lost it got their camera back and like the ray....
The water is definitely warmer than it was a few months ago. I've got swimming a couple times before work. It was tough convincing myself to jump into the ocean at 5:45 a.m. the first time, but surprisingly the water was not that cold. The afternoon sun definitely warms it up a bit though, or at least makes the water feel that much more refreshing and welcome.
Dave and his brother Jon are out on a trip to the BVI today. Dave's got the new underwater digital camera with him so hopefully there will be some good photos to post later!
I saw a turtle, plenty of fish, and some pretty coral, but not much else along the way. A few people saw a shark. I have not yet had my first shark encounter here but I'm sure it will happen sooner or later... Dave finished the practice first in about 55 minutes and I came in at 1:14, with maybe 5 people in between the two of us. After finishing the 2.4, a couple people decided to swim the last portion of the race course on their own - another mile. I definitely felt up to it, but we'd already made arrangements to have our stuff dropped off at Trunk. One of the race volunteers gave us St. Thomas folks a ride back to Cruz Bay - all six of us fit in the back of her little pickup, barely.
Last Sunday was the final practice swim, and we could do 1, 2.4, or 3.5. We're both going to race the 2.4 mile distance. Since my friend Debbie will be on island for the actual race and has signed up to volunteer for it at Trunk where Dave definitely wanted to finish, I was fairly easily convinced to sign up for that distance too. It was tempting though to go for the 3.5, since we don't get many opportunities to have kayak support and do long swims like that.
We had a good practice swim - Dave got the same time as the last practice but this time he swam farther because the kayakers told him the right route. I swam the same course as before and shaved 6 minutes off my time. On the actual race day, they'll have buoys out to mark the course. I'm a little wary that we'll show up for the race and the course will be a little different than what we've been swimming. I just don't want it to be longer than I'm expecting!
Two weekends ago Dave and I had planned to swim from Cinnamon to Maho and back to practice. That stretch seems pretty safe to do without any kayak support; that is, there would probably be no boats that would interfere with us. But rather than race to catch the ferry (the lines at K-Mart always take longer than you'd think....), we decided to try to swim from Sapphire Beach to Lindquist Beach (both on St. Thomas). Lindquist Beach is only accessible by water (or by trespassing). We tried swimming to it a month or two ago but there were some jet skiiers in the water that were a little too close to where we'd have to round a corner.
This time though we got there by 10 a.m. so we figured any jet skiiers would still be sleeping. We made it successfully around the corner that stopped us last time. There were maybe 5 or 6 hours out there with a fabulous back yard "pool" that we were swimming in along with some beautiful coral and interesting fish. We could see Lindquist Beach - it looks nice and very uncrowded! Unfortunately, we got caught in a rip current. It was very bizarre because the rip tide was going against the waves which were going into shore! We tried swimming parallel to shore but I was barely moving anywhere. I think we could have gotten through it eventually but since we were so far out I was afraid of wearing ourselves out and not being able to swim back. So, we just turned around and headed back.
It was still a good 45 minute swim and we saw lots of pretty coral and a cute little turtle. The previous day at Sapphire, we saw a really huge ray that was very cool looking. Dave had found an underwater disposable camera floating along (with no photos taken yet) so I convinced him to take a photo of the ray with it before we turned in the camera to the lost and found. I hope the island visitors who lost it got their camera back and like the ray....
The water is definitely warmer than it was a few months ago. I've got swimming a couple times before work. It was tough convincing myself to jump into the ocean at 5:45 a.m. the first time, but surprisingly the water was not that cold. The afternoon sun definitely warms it up a bit though, or at least makes the water feel that much more refreshing and welcome.
Dave and his brother Jon are out on a trip to the BVI today. Dave's got the new underwater digital camera with him so hopefully there will be some good photos to post later!
posted by Kendra at 12:34 PM
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