2 Bridges – 5k and 2.5k Swim Under the Walkway

PLANNING

It was a few short months ago I was introduced to Gunter Spilhaus and was asked if I would like to put together an open water event as part of an outdoor adventure multi-sport expo in Poughkeepsie. Needless to say, I jumped at the opportunity to plan another swim in the Hudson River, threw together a rough outline after laying out a theoretical course on google earth and enlisted Rondi Davies to co-direct the event with me. Time was short, as we were already past the 135 day deadline for marine event application submittals to the Coast Guard, so I made a few phone calls to see if the application would even be considered. I wasn’t told no… which is as good as I could expect, so… CG application, Safety Plan, USMS sanction application, CIBBOWS BOD approval, Entry Form submission, etc etc… full speed ahead. Fortunately much of the legwork and equipment would be provided by the Expo including tents and tables, t-shirts, food, P.A. system, land based permits, etc.

GEAR

I drove to Long Island to gather equipment that has been in storage all winter… kayaks, buoys, anchors, rescue equipment, marine radios; drove it upstate and took inventory. I decided to try and refine the buoy anchoring system a little so purchased some shackles, carabiners, and 1000′ of anchor line. SInce the average depth of the course is 55′, the anchor lines used at Coney Island would be too short. I supplemented the rescue equipment with rescue rings and a spinal board. Banners were ordered for my boat as well.

TESTING

Rondi is certainly the brains of our operation and excels at things like creating forms, and spreadsheets and calculating current speeds from tide charts… all the things that make my brain hurt. I’m good at things like moving heavy objects. Since the date for this swim was already set by the Expo, We (Rondi) calculated that an 11:30 start for the 5k would be optimal. The 2.5k would start 30 minutes later. A test swim a few weeks prior to the event on a similar tide confirmed Rondi’s predictions. I was happy that Hannah and Janet were able to participate in our test swim since they would both be in Iceland for the IGLA games during the event.

COURSE LAYOUT

Both events would take place on the same course… a rectangularish course that would wrap around the eastern stanchions of the Mid-Hudson Bridge and the Walkway Over the Hudson Bridge. Both roadways are over 120′ above the river, so it is quite an experience to pass through the shadow and then look up at the bridges under bellies. The course would require 7 buoys. One each 100 yards beyond the stanchions… south of the Mid-Hudson, and north of the Walkway. One at 25 yards east of each of the stanchions, one at 25 yards west of each of the stanchions. Finally, one buoy at 100 yards from the start. There is a 25 yard security zone around each of these stanchions, and we wanted to respect that. There are also a few cables running across the river bed, so care had to be taken when anchoring the buoys.

2.5k swimmers would enter the water at the Poughkeepsie boat launch, swim 100 yards to the turn buoy, turn 90 degrees south, swim around the Mid -Hudson Bridge stanchion and head north, swim around the Walkway Bridge stanchion and head south again until they reach the turn buoy again, then head east 100 yards to the finish. 5k swimmers would do 2 loops.

EVENT DAY

The forecast for event day worsened every day of the week prior, so much so that on 2 Bridges Eve, I was receiving lots of emails requesting race status. I hate the idea of canceling or postponing an event, and my standard reply was “unless there is sustained electrical storm activity, the event is on!” It rained on and off all night… I got less than 2 hours sleep listening to the rain and checking the radar weather maps every few minutes. I memorized Riverkeeper’s water quality testing charts with all the data for the Poughkeepsie area… how long after how much rain does the water quality deteriorate to a point where it would not be advisable to swim in????? Fortunately, this storm brought us no where near what I would consider questionable… I even put my wife Clare in the water! Rain continued into the morning and we were quite drenched setting the course. Swimmers began to arrive by car and by train. Four agencies provide us with marine patrol… Ulster County Sheriff’s Dept, Dutchess County Sherrif’s Dept, Poughkeepsie Fire Dept, and the Coast Guard. Additionally, we had my boat, a jet ski, and 13 kayakers on a course that is really easy to navigate.
The rain trickled off, and the sun even poked through shortly after the 5k began.

72 swimmers total… a good number for a “first time event”. It was thrilling to have so many aquatic friends come together in one of my favorite bodies of water. I think all the Hudson River newbys were pleasantly surprised by the water quality and the beauty of the Mid-Hudson region. It shouldn’t be hard to convince them to return!

Thank you to everyone who made this event a great success! So many helped with set up, course marking, check-in, timing, safety, operations, break-down, awards/prizes, etc!

Rondi and I couldn’t have done it without you!

Photos here.

The other MAC

I have now had the pleasure of swimming with 2 MAC masters clubs (no relation…)

Both (NC and AZ) have excellent coaches and an enthusiastic bunch of swimmers who aren’t afraid to hit the pool before sunrise. I had the luxury of my very own 50m lane between Kent and AZ Tim.

This morning there was a suspicious looking character in a hoodie lurking about; I was unarmed…. he told us what to do for the next 75 minutes.

Thanks for the practice Paul Smith!

AZ OW

Its not news that I love the idea of consecutive stages, so I was very excited to learn from the forum’s very own PWB that an Arizona swimmer, Kent Nicholas, was putting together a 4 lake multi day event just a short distance from Phoenix. Kent successfully crossed the Catalina Channel last year and will be coming east a couple of times this season to tackle MIMS and Kingdom.

The series is S.C.A.R. and the four lakes are Saguaro, Canyon, Apache, and Roosevelt.
Today we swam Saguaro dam to dam… perhaps 9 miles. Tomorrow we swim Canyon.

A small group of swimmers (8), we met up with each other, our in-water support (boats and kayakers) and ground support (vehicle jugglers) at 5:00 AM. The warm up would be a challenging hike down a rugged trail with kayaks, and our gear in flip-flops (yes, we were warned that more substantial footwear would be a good idea).

The juxtaposition of extreme desert flora surrounding abrasive rocks with the cool water (65 degrees at the start) creates a dramatic landscape, though not entirely natural. This series of lakes are actually dammed sections of the Salt River.

We had to swim east for about 500 yards to touch the buoy line to start. Once there, we formed our little tri-pods (heh heh…) of 2 swimmers and 1 kayaker.

Young Greyhound Pod
Gordon Smith
Shauna Nelson
James Sieffert

Wise Greyhound Pod
Kurt Dickson
Patrick Brundage
Wayne Rich

Skyscraper Pod
David Barra
Janet Harris
Jason Walters

Westwood Warrior Pod
Meg Rich- Z
Kent Nicholas
Candy Nicholas

Rover Kayaker:
Scott Mara

Some adjustments were made with kayaker assignments and we were off… start time about 7:30.

I liked the sound of “skyscraper pod”, even though the tallest building in the nearest town to my High Falls residence is only 6 stories.

The banks of the river/lake are lined with sage and saguaro cacti that alternate between open areas and tall canyon walls rising straight out of the water. The rugged beauty of this lake is breathtaking, and I was at times distracted… wanting to focus my attention on one feature or another. Still, Janet and I podded well together, stopping briefly every 30 minutes for a feed.

The Greyhounds (both young and wise) didn’t disappoint, and were out of our sight after about an hour. I don’t know about the young’uns, but for the Wise Pod; this was their longest OW swim ever, by a fair amount. I feel honored to have been able to share the lake with these USMS Stars for this occasion!

…..Canyon tomorrow!

ITS OW SEASON!

Though I took my first plunge early this year… 1/1/12 at Brighton Beach, and (as always) some hard-core CIBBOWS swimmers continued the weekly ritual without break, I don’t consider myself fully in that NY-OW state of mind until the mercury reads 50+.

I thought it was a possibility this past Saturday, so after a very brief 1500 yards at Gunks Masters, I dressed and drove the 2.5 hours to Brighton Beach. I missed the 11 AM meet-up, but there were a good dozen or more swimmers either in the water of just finishing up their swims.

Ritual is a very personal thing, and it makes it hard to plan a group swim when the water is a bracing 46 degrees. Some take a long time wading in slowly to “warm up”, others do a heads up breast-stroke, etc. I like the shock of a quick plunge.

I swam to the end of BB and back… about 1 mile, and tried something new to warm up. No towel, no parka, just a 1 mile run, repeating the same path that I just swam.

On the way back I noticed a swimmer still out there… Brad Mc Vetta was in the home stretch of the standard Coney Island 5k loop. Total time 1hr 50min (I was impressed)

The water was cold and clear, and a few days later, Janet and Hannah would witness the invasion of the spider crabs http://forums.usms.org/blog.php?b=21316
I have only witnessed this event once at Brighton Beach and it was indeed breathtaking. I’m not sure what triggers this activity, as I’ve swum through many seasons without seeing a single one.

Today, I had the pleasure of swimming in a small local pond that sits in the shadow of the Shawangunk cliff formation known as the Trapps.http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi…Trapps_-_1.jpg

My friend and frequent training partner Willie has been inviting me to join him here for a while, and when he claimed that the water temp was up to the mid 50’s, I didn’t really believe him. It was actually high 50’s today… quite comfortable. We got in around 5:45 and the sun set behind the Trapps after about 15 minutes into our swim. Without a winter to speak of, the local lakes won’t be fed by snow melt, and I expect that water temps around the region will hit the 60’s by mid April.

We’ll be in the Hudson in no time!

B-DAY SET

For the first time ever, I had three others join me for my birthday swim.

Since we only had the pool for 2 hours, I tried to come up with something that would fill the time slot and be a good challenge.

I presented Rondi, Ed and Willie a choice of three options:

A) 188 x 25 Fly on :30 (4700 yards)

B) 47 x 150 Free on 2:10 (7050 yards)

C) 47 Rounds of: 75 Free on 1:10; 75 (25 Fl, 25 Bk, 25 Br) on 1:10 (7050 yds)

Option A was flatly rejected by my pool-mates, but I wanted to get some fly in so we went with Option C.

Since everyone except for yours truly was skimping on the stroke stuff, I modified the interval to 1:05 for the Free 75’s, and 1:15 for the IM 75’s. (If you’ve ever seen my breaststroke, you know that this was a rather important modification)

I’m thinking maybe 2x 4800 on 60 minutes for next year…..
(might be solo again)

Pilgrim’s Regress

Today, I drove to Plymouth MA to pick up a Zodiac hull that I will be outfitting, over the next couple of months, with a new motor, new tubes, new electronics, and a customized top designed to store a variety of safety gear and facilitate the clear display of warning/caution/swimmer banners slightly above eye-level. This seems to be the logical progression for a swimmer obsessed… have boat; will/can travel. Of course, there is the tiny detail of needing willing/able/capable pilots… more on that plan soon.

Since I have been thinking about a swim from Plymouth to Provincetown for some time now, I decided to take a small detour to White Horse Beach, which would be the logical start for this swim. Taylor Road runs parallel to the beach and is fairly close to the high water line, but there are many beach cottages, at times crammed four deep between the pavement and the sand… some on stilts, and only a very few appeared to be set up for winter occupancy. To say the neighborhood was quiet on this Saturday in January would be an understatement. Still, there were a few dog walkers on the beach, and as I was on somewhat of a recon mission, I was determined to have a chat with anyone who might provide a bit of info. Mr. Black Lab – iPod was in a bit of a hurry, but did stop long enough to point in the direction of Provincetown. He was also kind enough to add that it would probably take days to swim that distance… thanks… you can go now… Fido is getting restless…

Cape Cod is a rather narrow and low-lying strip of land that extends from the mainland in a counter-clockwise sweep to the terminal fist that is Provincetown. As the horizon is somewhat less than the 19-20 miles between W-H Beach and P-Town, there was no visible land, but the Pilgrim Monument http://pilgrim-monument.org/monument.html , at 252 feet tall, is the only thing one can see in the distance.

HISTORY

I thought this was a stretch of water begging for a first crossing, but have just recently learned that it has, in-fact, been swum once successfully and attempted several times. According to my friend, (and director of the Boston Light Swim www.bostonlightswim.org) Greg O’Connor:

I did find that many people have attempted the swim from Plymouth to P-town or the reverse, but only Russell Chaffee of Sayre, PA has succeeded. Chaffee was known for his long river swims such as the Susquehanna River (250 miles). He would swim 30 or so miles during day light and get out at night, much like the 8 Bridges.

He swam from Plymouth because of the counter clockwise rotation of the current in Cape Cod bay.

Chaffee made his swim on Wednesday August 14, 1968. He started from Manomet Beach in Plymouth at 4:00AM. This timing coincides with the height of the ebb tide in Plymouth on that day. He finished at Herring Cove Beach just south of Race Point in Provincetown at 6:40PM, about 14 hour and 40 minutes. The distance is about 18.5 miles. He wore no cap, but just goggles and blue swim trunks (or a “skirt” as my friend Pam would say).
Before starting he ate a breakfast of eggs and ham (not green) and during the swim he drank 8 cokes and ate a box of sugar cookies. The tide was still going out when he got to P-town and he had to “work like mad” to finish. Chaffee was 41 at the time.

The first reported attempt for a bay crossing before Chaffee was in 1915. On a bet (most marathon open-water swims back then involved a lot of boasting and money to back it up) Henry Sullivan of Lowell (1st American to cross the EC!) and Samuel Richards of S. Boston left Nantasket way up in Hull and swam for P-town. Charlie Toth of Boston (3rd man to swim the EC) jumped in at the last minute. Richards quit after 5 hours, then Toth after 10. After 14 hour, with 9 miles to go, Sullivan got out.

There were several failed attempts in the 1950s to swim from P-town to Plymouth.

Now, I have to say that this bit of history really adds to the allure of the swim for me, and having a few more friends with an interest in reviving the route is exciting and reassuring.

How many days until summer?

Maho Bay 2012

This is the 6th year I have worked open water swim camps with Terry and Total Immersion, and every year, the roster expands, and the experience is more rewarding. Celeste St Piere directed this camp as well as an all women’s camp the week before bringing together more than 80 swimmers in one of the most beautiful and accessible places in the world to swim in.

MAHO BAY

The Maho Bay eco-tent Village functioned as our home base. A large majority of campers and coaches also took residence here, so during swim breaks, there were opportunities to chat with swimmers in some of the other groups over a beer or a meal… at the dining pavilion or just under the shady canopy of a few trees (beware of falling iguana poop)

http://maho.org/Maho.cfm

St John is sparsely populated, as a great majority of the island is national park. A network of hiking trails lead to ruins of sugar plantations and beautiful panoramic views. I broke a toe on the second day, so with a pass on hiking, got to log more aquatic time.

The Schedule

With nearly 50 swimmers ranging from OW beginners to well seasoned, we divided into small groups spending our morning sessions working on OW specific skills and afternoons applying those skills to longer group swims. There was an informal early morning “coaches swim” for those of us looking for a little extra credit. Terry circulated among all the groups and offered us some challenging focal points to carry with us as we explored Maho and the nearby bays.

Willie Miller and I had the honor of working with a rather ambitious group of swimmers, and our afternoon swims were consistently between 5 and 10k. I’ll describe a couple:

Maho to Waterlemon round trip

We started at Little Maho Bay and followed the buoy line through Francis Bay to Mary’s Point. Things were always a little bumpy here, and tarpon and eagle ray sightings are common. We continued into the wind east, and then south-east to Waterlemon Cay where we met up with a group of swimmers that hiked out to Waterlemon. after a brief chat, we swam into the beach at Leinster Bay where we fueled up with a snack and some water before swimming back to Maho. Six of us swam to Leinster Bay, two would hike back, but we picked up another so the five of us set out for the swim back. At Mary’s Point a school of 5 to 6 foot megalops atlanticus paraded by. Since we seemed to be making good time now with a tail wind, we decided to take a detour around Whistling Cay… counter-clockwise and then head straight back…. 12k. We swam much of this in sync.

Maho to Trunk Bay and back – Again, the start was at Little Maho with a heading south west to America’s Point. We continued along the buoy line staying on the outside of Cinnamon Cay and hugged the shore line around the point between Cinnamon Bay and Trunk Bay making a bee line to the small sandy beach at the west end of Trunk Bay. Water break and back this time taking the inside tracks around Trunk Cay and Cinnamon Cay…. 7k.

Sea Life

The shallows of Maho Bay abound with schools of tiny anchovy-like fish under constant assault from schools of palm sized fish from below, and dive-bombing pelicans from above. At times the attacks are so coordinated that many of these little guys beached themselves to escape the head on assault… the next wave bringing them back to the brine, disoriented, they now fall easy prey to the opportunistic juvenile tarpon cruising by. This is our daily show. We become familiar with the preferred territory of the turtles and sting rays (Big Maho) and giant red starfish also abound. A visiting manta ray with a 7′ wingspan cruised with coach Dave Cameron one afternoon, and barracudas would pop up anywhere.

Equipment

I purchased an inflatable stand-up-paddleboard for this week, http://www.seaeagle.com/LongBoard.aspx , I spent almost as much time on the board as I did in the water, and rigged up a towing belt for some of the longer swim when we wanted to take along food, drink, cameras, etc… I also kept a phone and marine radio on board. The advantages of a board over a kayak are many; in the chop, standing is more visible to boaters than a kayaker, in heavy wind, the board remained easy to tow while swimming, in an emergency situation, it would be easy to put a swimmer on the board, on a long one way swim, the board could be folded up for the shuttle ride back to the camp.

I tried to find a pilot that would escort a small group of swimmers to Jost Van Dyke (BVI) 10k…but due to customs technicalities, couldn’t convince anyone to do it. Instead, on the day after the camp ended, Lennart Larson and I decided to swim to Cruz Bay. Much of the route was already familiar to us, but we would be going past Hawksnest, Caneel Bay and finally into the very busy Cruz Bay. We loaded up the SUP with a few gels and sports drinks and set off at 12:07. We had a bit of a tail wind for the first half and seemed to be making good time. This came to an abrupt end as we came around Hawksnest Point. At Turtle Bay, a strong rip was moving us northeast… into the narrow channel between the point and Henley Cay. This was not good, as many boats use this short cut to get to Cruz Bay. I told Lennart that the only chance I thought we had was to head into Turtle Bay and hug the shoreline into Caneel Bay. We took a hard left turn and swam around the point in very shallow water, our bodies just inches above the reef. It was easy to see that we were making steady but painfully slow progress… each stroke gaining only a few inches. We did persevere, and finally we were past the rip and back to a cruising speed. One more point to swim around and Cruz Bay was in sight. We swam from moored sailboat to sailboat looking both ways and timing things carefully to avoid any “conflict” and as we approached the beach on the north side of the ferry dock we could see Clare, Celeste, Andy, and Todd waiting for us… Dry clothes! It was 2:47. Lunch and a shuttle back to Maho. Tomorrow back to the snow in NY.

2012 – Day 1

Nothing like starting the year off with a bang…. and a PR!

I would have been content with a nice long 10,000 yard pool set… a standard 100×100… or maybe something a little more creative, but since no pool within 50 miles was open today, I decided to join CIBBOWS for a New Year celebratory ocean swim. An unseasonably warm winter so far has brought the ocean temperature slowly down to 45 degrees… only 5 degrees colder than my last Brighton Beach swim the weekend before Thanksgiving, so I was feeling rather positive that I could swim for at least a mile… maybe more.

I got in the car at 8:00 AM. Outside temperature 31 degrees… a little frost on the windshield. Ten minutes drive I was in New Paltz… grabbed a cup of coffee and headed for the NYS Thruway… outside temp: 36 degrees. This is looking good.

XM radio deep tracks and coffee house kept me company until I was within range of WNYC (one of new york’s public radio station)… classical music… not in the mood… switch to some Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds cd’s… that’ll put things into perspective. Over the George Washington Bridge, the Hudson looks flat. The sun is shining… outside temp: 42 degrees… open moonroof. 30 minutes later I’m at Brighton Beach. The streets are empty but there is a lot of activity on the boardwalk. I’m the first swimmer to arrive… outside temp: 46 degrees.

I pace around a bit wondering if anyone is going to show up here, or head down to Stillwell Ave to marvel at the invading swarm of humanity gathering for the annual Polar Bear dip. The water near the Coney Island Pier is busy with Police and Fire boats, even though the Bears aren’t scheduled to plunge for a few hours. Hsi-Ling and John H are the first to show up, and soon 20 others spread their gear out at the usual spot. There is no hurry to suit up and get in, but there is a lot of discussion about it! Brad and I formulate a plan to swim to the white building (at the east end of BB) and back… a distance of one mile. He warns me to give him a head start as he is slow getting in… knees then hips then shoulders then a little heads up breaststroke… I don’t know how people do it like that. I’m a kamikaze.

Brad starts his entry routine, I already have my earplugs in and a silicone cap on… check to make sure my goggles are seated well… parka off and to the water. Brad is up to his waist. I start to wonder if this is a good idea. Its three degrees colder than I have ever swum in before… a measurable difference for sure, but I’m a little older (yes) and wiser (debatable) now…

I turn my back to the water, and facing the boardwalk, close my (goggled) eyes… taking deep breaths, I talk myself through the doubt. “Its a perfect sunny day”… “Its only a mile”… “Its only 3 degrees colder”… “Etc”.

Eyes open, turn around. Brad is breaststroking; the final stage of his entry ritual. Its go-time.

I run in up to my waist and dive in. It hurts. Its cold. It feels like someone slapped my neck, both sides simultaneously just below my jaw line, I gasp for air, and again until it becomes a steady rhythm. Breathing left (beach side) I soon pass Brad who is still doing breaststroke… sorry, can’t stop now, I’ll have to double back when things even out a bit more. After a few minutes I am able to settle into a comfortable pace. My hands and feet are getting cold, ironically, I look forward to this sensation as a sense of inner warmth always follows. Some say a loss of dexterity is a sign of hypothermia, but I’ve found that this happens so early into a cold swim for me that it is more of a sign that my blood is staying in my core… where I prefer it to be. I turn back often to see where Brad is at… always about 25 yards back and swimming steadily. I get to the white building, swim back to Brad, and we continue to the white building again together. I feel good now, but its no time to chat so we start right back west.

With Brad on my left (ocean side) I alternate breathe all the way back. When we are a few yards from our starting point, we are greeted by another swimmer heading east. It takes me a moment to realize that its Rachel. A hug and a frozen faced, bells palsy-like mumble of apy ooo ere, and I decide to join her for a round trip to the large rocks east of Grimaldo’s chair… probably 800 yards. We pass the jetty and head back. With a little more than 150 yards to go, a dreamy feeling paid me a visit, so I headed for the shallows. My face was pretty frozen, and I wasn’t closing my mouth after each breath… taking in a bit of water each cycle. I found it cool and refreshing. This I took as a sign to get out. I exited the water and ran on the beach for a few minutes before joining the rest of the gang.

A little over 40 minutes @45 degrees! (a new low!)

The after drop hit me and so the shivers began. Lots of hot tea made its way around, and the sun was still shining, so the warming process was uneventful. Everyone started making their way west to Stillwell to join the Polar Bear festivities.

Planning 2012

This is the season…. almost daily, reports are posted of “the last swim of the season” on blogs, tweets and FB. Photos of shivering swimmers under bare trees or skipping through the snow to a sacred splash site are popping up as well.

Though I haven’t been in the OW since Oct. 22, I have plans to get another couple of Coney Island swims in before December hits. Still…. thoughts are deep into the 2012 season.

Rondi and I have begun planning the 2nd annual 8 Bridges event, and we have an updated website.

Plans to open the stages to more swimmers this year will likely mean that I spend a few of the days on the water coordinating swimmer safety with our boaters and kayakers. I am excited to be able to offer OW swimmers the opportunity to experience the beauty of the middle and lower Hudson from our unique perspective.

So… not knowing exactly how much swimming I’ll get in during that week, I’ve started looking more seriously at a few things that have been on the back burner for a while. Logistically, its fairly easy to book a swim with a well established federation and approved pilot. There may very well be a long waiting period, but the process is a given, and one can draw upon the experiences of others to measure expectations. On the other end, planning a new route requires research and on site recon test swims and observations. Without the enthusiastic support of other swim-explorers, I couldn’t imagine spending all the time and resources necessary to realize these swims that have yet to be done.

PLYMOUTH TO P_TOWN

Though NYC Swim’s MIMS is a leg of the Triple Crown, the northeast of the US really doesn’t have a swim to compete with the English Channel. California has Catalina, and a bunch of other possible swims from the chain of islands that make up the Santa Barbara Channel, and so with that in mind I started to look for something that would be as challenging. After a little research, I think I found something that might work. The Cape Cod Bay sees water temps that might reach the mid 60’s in the summer, and from what I’ve read, a current that swirls in a counter-clockwise direction which could make the finish “interesting”. I have the enthusiastic support of two swimmer friends (both who spend a good amount of time on the Cape) Mo Siegal, and Eileen Burke. Both have been talking about about a swim across the bay, and so with our combined effort, I think we can make it happen this year. Though we haven’t formulated our plan yet, this mission will take at least a couple of slow boat rides along the planned route to measure current speeds at different stages of the tides. The good thing about this is we don’t have to wait for the water to warm up to “swimmable” temps, and I think late winter/early spring would be a lovely time to be floating around in a dinghy in the middle of the bay. As the “founders” of the swim, we will also have to decide where the start and finish should be. There appear to be a couple of more obvious options for the start: Whitehorse Beach to Provincetown is just over 19 miles, Gray’s Beach to Provincetown is 25+ miles. I think we are all leaning toward the latter which will put the start a few miles deep into Plymouth Bay and Kingston Bay. This might give the swimmer a couple of hours of tidal assist on an outgoing tide until they exit Plymouth Bay… then the whole anti-clockwise swirl will begin, and we might need to follow a heading due east in order to ride the sweep north to the “fist” for the finish. This is all speculative at this point, and I won’t really know how this all works until we spend a little time on the water.

SIX FINGERS

The number of Finger Lakes is either 11 or 12.

I’ve only swum in one of them… Canandaigua for a 2 mile USMS national championship a couple of years ago. Due to a lightning event, the race was cut short and results relied heavily on the honor system. A few revisions were made days after the event, but still, I’m pretty certain I was robbed… I won’t name names. Moving forward…..

Originally, I was trying to put together a plan to do all 11 (or 12) of them, but after last year’s 8 Bridges, I am pretty resolved to limit my efforts to just a week.

Luckily, there are 6 big’uns so my thoughts are to swim one per day with a break in the middle:

  • SKANEATELES – 16 miles
  • OWASCO – 11 miles
  • CAYUGA – 40 miles
  • ***rest day***
  • SENECA – 38 miles
  • KEUKA – 20 miles
  • CANANDAIGUA – 15.5 miles

I have a ton of legwork to do, including finding boat launches, training crews, water temps, prevailing wind directions, etc

There are a few other swims I’m looking at, but I’ll save them for another post. I’ve also been spending a lot of time looking at support equipment (boats), so stay tuned………….

Little Red

NYC Swim’s Little Red Lighthouse has long been one of my perennial favorites. The course continues to evolve, but today’s 10k swims very much like the 7.8 mile swim of a decade ago… that is to say; fast. Little Red has gone from a “butt slide” entry on smooth rocks to a familiar leap off of a NY Water Taxi. Last year’s swim started from the 79th Street Boat Basin north to the Inwood Canoe Club…. crossing under the George Washington Bridge. This was going to be a tough event to top, but today’s event did… and by a large margin. The check-in/finish area had convenient and plentiful free parking available; the park is just across the street from an excellent supermarket so last minute provisions are readily available; plenty of grass to relax and stretch out on; easy boarding of the Water Taxi and exiting onto the dock; and a course that started about 4 miles north of the GWB. Scenic highlights were passing by Spuytin Duyvel and under the GWB (2nd time this week for me). The course was well marked and patrolled by kayaks and motor boats, and the generous timeline allowed plenty of time to socialize… and with over 300 registered swimmers, a good opportunity to meet and greet out of town swimmers, many who traveled from afar specifically for this event.

I was happy to see a good number of younger swimmers present. Their absence in USMS sanctioned events is an unfortunate technicality that I would like to see change. I took the swim out hard, and had the good fortune of meeting up with a few friends along the way. I swam with (behind) Rondi for five or ten minutes, and then came up next to Janet. We synched up for a bit, including a perfect synchro transition into backstroke under the GWB without missing a beat! Then Emma came by and I swam with her for a bit… we swam a good stretch of this event together last year. Kayaker Teddy came by to say hello and point the way to the next buoy, and Capt John gave the final direction of “start heading in” to the finish.

I hope this LRLH course is a keeper!

Thank you to all the staff and volunteers at NYC SWIM for making this an awesome event!