DISCLAIMER: Open-water swimming is inherently dangerous. Open-water swimmers risk drowning, hypothermia, hyperthermia, heart attacks, panic attacks, cramping, jelly fish stings, fish bites, boat or jet-ski collisions, collisions with floating or submerged objects (including other swimmers), and other calamities that can be injurious, disabling or fatal! The "West Neck Pod" is an informal association of open-water swimmers who swim "outside the lines" with no lifeguard protection, it has no formal membership, organizational structure or legal identity, and its participants, including the author of this blog, make no representations and assume no liability with respect to its group open-water swims. All swimmers who participate in West Neck Pod group open-water swims do so at their own risk. Be careful out there!

Thursday, October 31, 2013

Halloween Swim...Wicked Fun!

 
No icy fingers reached up to grab our unsuspecting ankles and drag us soundlessly down to Davy Jones' locker... no bloated corpses leered up at us from the murky depths below...no sea monsters from the deep swallowed us whole...and we were not churned to mincemeat by the outboard motors of a deranged boat captain bent on mayhem....In fact, this morning's pre-dawn Halloween swim was pretty benign, and the five of us who suited up in the early morning darkness -- Carole Wickham, Joye Brown, Jimmy Kwong, Tony Alizzi and I -- had an eerily nice time! Unlike the hair-raising swims of last week, this morning there was absolutely no wind, the water was, well, dead calm, the air temperature was a practically balmy 50 degrees, and the water, back up to 52-53 degrees, did not invoke the usual ear-splitting shrieks as it crept into our wetsuits...In honor of the occasion we wore bright orange Halloween caps, and Joye handed out glowsticks that made our floaty-bags glow like jack-o'-lanterns as we swam to the yellow sign and back. It was even warm enough to shower on the beach afterwards -- yes, the showers are still on! -- and then...our last open-water swim of October 2013 was over....!
 
But November swimming begins tomorrow....See you in the Salt!


Jimmy and Tony




"Boo!"

Looks like there were some Halloween ghosts out there after all!

Joye's floaty-bag glowing under the water


Happy Halloween!

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Another Fall Mourning


The waning full moon was still faintly illuminating the surface of the water when Joye Brown and I arrived at West Neck Beach in the early morning darkness for a 6:45 swim....By the time we got in the water just before 7, both water and sky had brightened somewhat, and we could actually see the buoy we were swimming towards. As the moon light faded and the sun dawned, lighting up the opposite shore, the colors of the changing leaves on the distant trees glowed like embers....
This is heaven, this October swimming. This is heaven. If only it could last forever....




 
 

 
See you in the Salt!