Day 8, and the weather is still pretty crappy though it looks like things will open up next week. Alternating strong winds and rain have been the story thus far and I’m very sad to say that a bunch of swimmers have run out of time and left Dover without their shot at a crossing…. east coast friends Jordan Waxman and Liz Fry among them. Jordan’s departure hit me especially hard as we have been training together since spring at Brighton Beach, the Hudson River, and Lake Minnewaska. We both swam MIMS and the CIBBOWS 5k finishing within a couple of minutes of each other and seconds apart… respectively. Liz was planning a double and required a window of clear weather of > 20 hours.
Still, swimmers of the next tidal window (my tide) are arriving daily and another CIBBOWS swimmer, Jim Meier, has just e-mailed me with his plans to go for swim this afternoon…. I’ll join him in the harbor around 5PM.
I’ve got 3 different sources for weather forecasts, and I check each several times daily:
http://www.windguru.cz/int/index.php?sc=96593
http://www.accuweather.com/ukie/fore…209XT&metric=1
http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/station_page.php?station=62304
….. such is the life of a EC aspirant.
There appears to be a window opening next week, and as per my pilot Paul Foreman, it is possible to go out with winds predicted at 10 – 15 mph with a bit of 20 mph. With that in mind, it looks to me like the first swimmer will not have the best conditions, so, Paul might opt to take a relay, or offer it to the #1 slot (who happens to be an american, Joe L. from SF). If Joe passes, I have the option, and the way things have been the past several weeks, there is no way I’ll turn it down.
Roz arrives this afternoon, so I’ll have a solid support crew with her and John… like a mini Catalina reunion!