Nahant swim with the kitesurfers

Checked out a different place today, near my usual haunt, Revere Beach. This time I went to Nahant Beach. I’d been warned about going anytime after 7am, due to limited parking and crowds. Well, part of that turned out to not be an issue today. Tons of parking and I even got a spot directly in front of beach entrance #6.

It really was a terribly pretty day. The one issue I had was the crowds…of kitesurfers. Seriously, look at all of them!

And that’s not all of them! At one point I stopped counting at 12. I had to be very careful entering the water. I waited till there was a space between kitesurfers then entered and began swimming as quickly as I could into the waves to get deep(er) so as to avoid them.

Two of them came close, but both made a point to look at me and wave. I appreciated this as it meant they actually saw me. I can’t be that hard to spot: I’m wearing a bright yellow MSF cap, a bright lime green rash/sun guard, and towing a bright orange buoy. That should be sufficient, I think.

As I mentioned, the water was pretty rough today, and it’s been weeks and weeks since I’ve been in salt water. In fact, I think the Beavertail 10K was the last time, so three weeks. I decided to do just a bit over a mile and then get out. That mile took forever. Half of it was me stopping to look out for the kitesurfers and to check out the views (it really is pretty there), the other half was me fighting those waves, trying to get distance. My moving time had me doing 100 yards at 2:10-ish, but with all the stops I ended up taking over 2:30 per 100y. No biggie.

If you were to go by the pic above, you’d think I’d forgotten to start Mr. Garmin till after I started. But the satellite view clears this up nicely, dear reader(s).

Low tide was about an hour in the past when I showed up, so got a nice push home near the end. If one were to come around that point at the bottom of the map (Eastern Point) then swim directly west for four miles, you’d end up on Revere Beach.

So, good day today. Oh! Water was wonderfully warm at 66-67F throughout. Couldn’t ask for a better temperature. If the water were flatter, would have stayed longer.

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