Ederle Swim 2011, a set on Flickr.
Ha ha ha! It's 2:30 am and my alarm just went off - it was still set for the Ederle swim start, and I've been working on my Flickr gallery/Ederle swim report and didn't realize how late it was getting! It's done, though, so I might as well share it before I turn in. Hope you enjoy it.
Ni'night, now!
9 comments:
Wonder Woman indeed! That's just awesome. Great photo coverage, Bonnie - from dawn to dusk - beautiful. Thanks for staying up late to post. :) I sure you were beat from a day like that.
Admirable swim? Thoroughly amazing.
Again, great photos, Bonnie!
Yeah, crossing the Lower Harbor in a kayak is challenging enough. Swimming across it? Wow.
Glad you enjoyed the gallery - I lost track of what time it was because I was having such a good time going through the day again.
Great job and great photo report!
I'm curious how open water swimmers navigate in tricky currents, away from reference marks like buoys and landmarks. Do they rely on the kayaker to stay on track? Does one of you use GPS to do that?
They rely very heavily on their kayaker & support motor vessel. Our motorboat captain knew these waters pretty well & directed me a lot. If and when I do this again, I think I will have a much better sense of what's needed myself - looking at the overall GPS course, the skipper actually did quite a good job of keeping us on course but there was a whole lot of "More to the left! More to the right! More to the left!" that I think was kind of hard on my swimmer. The entire harbor is actually marked out like a highway - you have shipping channels with buoys, a couple of daymarks, a two-tower range leading ships into one of the side channel, 2 lighthouses the bridge itself and the city beyond, next time I'll know the currents better and I should be able to work out a set of ranges to use to hold my own course with a little more confidence.
I think the main problem with the motorboat running things is that he actually has a hard time gearing his perceptions of possible courses down to the speed of a swimmer. A kayaker can do that better IF he or she has got a clear plan - as it was, our skpper kept asking me to take her to the right of things that I already knew we were going to be passing on the left - the course he was laying out was a good one, we just didn't have the speed to achieve it. Next time I think I'll have a much clearer picture of what needs to happen.
Long story short...the swimmers rely on their kayakers and motorboats, and I realized after the fact that I should have put in a little more prep time than I did. Seriously underestimated the force that Raritan Bay has on the picture down there & it's all drawn out clear as day in Eldridge. Don't think it was a make-or-break factor but I do think it would have been a more pleasant swim for Capri without the constant back-and-forth.
That still wasn't precisely "short", was it?
Seemed concise to me.
I'm always amazed how much we have to crab into the cross currents in SF Bay when we're headed back to Berkeley. And that's in a six-knot boat. It must be much worse for a swimmer.
Good photos, outstanding swim!
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