Rob D, the Discovery Channel’s First Ever Chief Shark Officer?

It could happen right? I’ve just recently sent off my application to the Discovery Channel to be their Chief Shark Officer, if there were ever a job made just for me that’s probably it! Hopefully they feel the same way!

As promised I’ve posted my audition video below along with the text of what I scripted for it. The two didn’t really come out the same… between 52 degree water induced amnesia and my video editing, bits and pieces didn’t make the cut. It also didn’t help that I was in the middle of a mini windstorm! The audio has some issues in the middle from all the wind blowing across the surface of the ocean. Watch the water moving behind me as the video goes on… it was all the way choppy and gnarly by the time I got back to the beach.

Hi my name is Rob Dumouchel… I’m a marathon ocean swimmer, Adventure Beard enthusiast, swim blogger at RobAquatics.com, and applicant for Chief Shark Officer! I’m coming to you from my office, the 52 degree waters of the Pacific off the coast of Avila Beach, California. It’s a little cold out here, but you can’t argue with the view!

In the swim world I’m known as a bit of an open water swimming evangelist and documentarist. Armed with not much more than a banana hammock, goggles and a waterproof digital camera I’ve been exploring oceans, lakes, and rivers all over the country and sharing my aquatic expeditions online for the last couple of years.

2010 took me all over the California Coast and then onward to Colorado, Chicago, Indiana, the Chesapeake Bay, Virginia, North Carolina, and even Coney Island NY in November! 2011 is shaping up with trips to Vermont, the Great Salt Lake, a swim across Tahoe with more swims still in the works!

My most recent adventure happened right here off the Central Coast of California. I stepped into the ocean on January 1st in Avila Beach and swam 10km down the coast to Pismo Beach against the wind and swells in 53 degree water without a wetsuit.

The one thing I get asked about the most as an open water swimmer is Sharks! Without fail someone who doesn’t swim in the ocean will get to the shark question within moments. My take on it is – are sharks scary? Hell yeah they’re scary! But are they out to get me? Probably not. Despite being a fair sized gentleman I’m no match for the fatty deliciousness of a nice elephant seal.

By stepping into the role of Chief Shark Officer I’d be able to learn more about “the landlord” and share my experiences with the rest of the world. I know my friends, fans, and readers would love to see me face to face with some of the gnarliest predators in the ocean… which makes me wonder a little if they’re really my friends… but I figure if I survive this job it’ll put a lot of my open water swimmer friends at ease knowing a little more about who they’re borrowing the ocean from when they’re out for a swim!

To learn more about me go check out RobAquatics.com – thank you and see you in the ocean!!!

Keep your fingers crossed kids… maybe this year’s open water tour will be on TV and involve certain sea creatures that I’m usually trying to avoid while swimming!

January 14, 2011 | 9 Comments »

Behind the Scenes of my Chief Shark Officer Video

So yesterday I saw an article linked from the Yahoo homepage about the Discovery Channel looking for a Chief Shark Officer, it’s fair to say that caught my attention… immediately! So what’s the deal? Basically the job requirements are as follows “Must enjoy exotic, waterfront locations, buff bodies in bathing suits and having the bejesus scared out of you. Looking delicious in a wet suit is a plus. Sense of humor required.” Not sure about that wearing a wetsuit part, but the rest of it is all me!

After reading up on things I sprang into action! I planned out a video and wrote a little script for it, started to compile a little Rob D. Fact Sheet, and worked on some other odds and ends in relation to the whole thing. It was already too late in the day to shoot any video in the ocean so I put it off until lunch today.

this ladder looks pretty legit right?

Around 11 my girlfriend swung by my office to pick me up and we made our way down to Avila Beach. I was packing 3 different cameras since I wasn’t totally sure what was going to work best for what I wanted. I know that the pier downtown has a stairwell with a platform underneath it. My original plan was to send Heidi down there with some cameras and I could do my thing from the water while she stayed dry just above the swells. This plan didn’t happen though… the stairway was locked and gated off, crap. In looking for an alternative we saw a fairly precarious ladder, she volunteered to at least give it a shot and shoot from up there.

I jogged back down the pier to the beach and threw on my suit and goggles, tucked one of my cameras and the script in my suit and swam down the pier to where the ladder is. The water was about 52 today! Yikes that’s cold!

While I waited for Heidi to figure out how she wanted to go about this whole ladder thing I pulled out my script and went workout kickboard style with it on a buoy! I pasted it right on there. It didn’t work as well as I wanted it to because the wind was blowing so hard, but it was good enough.

Heidi dangling precariously above the ocean preparing to play cinematographer

Heidi climbed half way down the ladder, which must be upwards of 25-30 feet above the water, and hung on tight with one hand while the other shot me from above with my Panasonic Lumix. We got through a little intro and then I totally lost my train of thought… remembering what I had written for myself while floating in 52 degree water was next to impossible!

going over my notes that I was too cold to memorize

Once we stopped rolling she decided that this was as much adventure as she was in for and climbed back up onto the pier. I shot the rest of the video at an arm’s length with my Pentax W90. I think I got some pretty decent footage but the wind really messed with the audio through the middle. If I was all fancy with a production crew I’m sure we wouldn’t have any of those kind of problems, but as one bald dude holding a point and shoot camera while adrift in the ocean… that’s what you’re gonna get. Maybe I should have put some subtitles on that part… hmmm…

Shooting at an arm's length

When I got everything out that I was going to I tucked my camera back in my suit along with the paper I brought out with me, and swam it back to shore. It was so cold putting my face back in today! My eyeballs hurt inside my goggles from it! I ended up having to arc out a little further than I wanted to from the pier to avoid some fishing lines, but then it was back onto the beach to dry off, change and get back to work!

packing up my gear after a successful shoot!

Tonight I cut up the video, converted some files from the Lumix from one format to another so I could edit them on the machine I was using, and then pasted it all back together to make my application video! I’ll be posting it shortly as well as forwarding it along to the Discovery Channel! (UPDATE: Video is now posted here!) Admittedly it’s a super longshot, but who would make for a better Chief Shark Officer than a salty adventure bearded marathon swimmer? I’m going to say no one, but I’m also horribly biased :)

photo op or wardrobe malfunction? I'll never tell :)

January 13, 2011 | No Comments »

2011 Open Water Wish List

A little while back some of my open water blogger buddies posted their 2011 swim schedules and I wanted to play along but I wasn’t sure what I’d be able to get away with this year. I went pretty deep on 2010′s swim tour so the swim fund is running a little low and I’m going to have to get creative this year! Anyways, here’s my list of where I want to go… how many of these are going to happen I have no idea but a boy can dream right? :)

  • Santa Barbara Channel (Anacapa to Oxnard) 12.4 miles – June? - my buddy Dave VM did this swim last year and really enjoyed it. I went and listened to him talk about it at a Central Coast Triathlon Club meeting not too long ago and decided that I’d really like to give it a shot as well. I’m thinking that this would be a rad 30th birthday present to myself… we’ll see!
  • Great Salt Lake Open Water Marathon Swim 8.12 Miles – June 11th – this one just sounds all kinds of interesting… 8 miles in super salty water with some major buoyancy-tastical properties compared to just regular sea water!
  • Noblesville 25k – Indiana – June 18th – 25k dude… that’s some serious distance! Luckily they decided to move the race up into June when the water will hopefully be cooler than what we endured during the 10k champs back in July.

    • Noblesville Reservoir before the 10k in 2010

  • Luleå Midnight Swim 1500m & 3000m – July 1-2 – I heard about this one today and it totally captured my imagination! There’s two races and both of them start at 11:45 PM, which in July in Sweden happens to be broad daylight! I used to live in Sweden and would love to use this as an excuse to return to Scandinavia and see some friends and speak some Swedish. If anybody wants to go and bring a Swedish Speaking Swim Interpreter I’m your guy!
  • Kingdom Swim 10 miles – Vermont – July 9th – this is one of the few sure things on my list because I already paid for it! I still need to figure out how to get to Vermont, but my entry and kayaker are all ready and paid for.
  • Naples Island Swim 1.25 miles – July/August? – this is the swim that started it all for me! I’ve been to it 3 years in a row and been a sponsor the last 2. If I can help it I will be on the beach ready to hop into Alamitos Bay whenever this event happens to go down this year!

    • start of the 2008 Naples Island Swim

  • Santa Cruz Rough Water & Cruz Cruise – late July – I’ve done the rough water twice and the Cruz Cruise one time. Both are fun and well run. I like this swim because I’m a former Monterey resident and this is an excellent excuse to visit the bay for a while.

    • Santa Cruz Rough Water 2009

  • Pennock Island Challenge 8.2 miles – Alaska – August – 8.2 miles in cold water in Alaska? What about this wouldn’t I like? The desire to do this one is high but so is the cost to get there…
  • Lake Tahoe Crossing 11 miles – August, TBD – My friend Karen invited me up to do a crossing this summer and there’s no way I could say no to that! We still need to workout which weekend and stuff like that, but I’m really stoked to get that swim under my belt. I’ve never even been to Tahoe before so I think that this would an awesome first impression!
  • Madison Open Water Swim 2.4 miles – Wisconsin – August 20th – I’m a native Wisconsinite so anytime I can sneak in a trip to the homeland it’s a good deal for me… well as long as it’s not winter, they can visit me instead when it’s snowing :)
  • Maui Channel Solo 9miles – September 3rd – My training partner Niel planted the seed on this one… the Avila swim group put together a relay a couple years back and we’re starting to look at one for 2011. I would probably gravitate more towards a solo crossing, but either way I’d just like to do some swims in Hawaii!
  • Big Shoulders 5k – September 11th – I’ve been to this race 2 years in a row and would love to do a 3rd swim at Ohio Street Beach. Chicago is a great town, Big Shoulders is an awesome event, and one of my favorite open water people (Evan from FreshwaterSwimmer.com) is a local which makes it even more fun

    • view from Lake Michigan during Big Shoulders 2010

  • Catalina Channel - October? - admittedly this is aiming a little high, I’m not sure if Catalina is in the cards just yet. I got to spend a little time in the Channel with the Swim22 relay last year and I have to say I could definitely see myself doing the whole thing one day.

    • support swimming in the Catalina Channel

  • CIBBOWS Veteran’s Day 5k – November – I loved my whirlwind Brooklyn adventure this past November and given the chance would go back in a heartbeat for some fun in cold water with the gang from CIBBOWS!

    • floating off of Coney Island in November of 2010

So there’s my list… 15 swims, 7 of them marathon swims, in 8 different states and two continents! After a quick review of my finances I’m thinking large portions of this may end up getting pruned a little bit :) But if I happen to have any independently wealthy swim fans or random businesses that have always wanted to sponsor a slow, fat, but moderately charming swim blogger now is the time!

On top of my own swims I’m hoping to be able to ride along and crew on friend’s swims here on the California coast. If I’m lucky I might be able to get in a few dips in the Catalina and Santa Barbara Channels while supporting my friends.

January 10, 2011 | 11 Comments »

Well, That Was Cold!

Today was a rough one. Despite looking sunny and wonderful the ocean was pretty cold and we had a chilly breeze blowing down from the mountains out to the ocean. I think my body is still in recovery mode because it was way harder to process today’s swim than it should have been. Niel measured 53 off the pier and the buoy is reading 52, my body acted like it was 48.

Niel fishing for a water temperature reading

I got to the beach pretty early and met Sylvia and Susan over by the stairwell. Niel joined us soon after and I went with him to the pier to get the temperature. Once the 4 of us were all ready to go we started to walk down to the water but then Kim showed up and rushed into her wetsuit. Once she was almost set Pete showed up too! Since people kept rolling in a little late I took the opportunity to go get wet and acclimated early. I spent a little time in the ocean in Pismo on Saturday and it was really cold (51-53 according to the surf report) so I knew I was in for it when I hit the ocean.

the others starting to walk down to the water

I took my sweet ass time today… like waaaay longer than I normally ever do. I got settled in about waist deep and just couldn’t bring myself to get my upper body wet. Eventually Niel and Susan took off for the buoy line and I had intentions of following them… it didn’t happen. I stayed back with Sylvia who also skipped a wetsuit today and we kept each other company while we worked up the desire to actually dive in. Eventually she left too leaving just me there fidgeting in the breakers. At this point Niel and Susan had started to swim down the buoy line because it was to cold to just hang around even in a wetsuit. Sheesh… I needed to make a move. A fair size set started to roll through and that made the decision for me.

I aimed for the buoy line and just burned the whole way there from the cold. I paused at the buoy and collected up Kim, Sylvia, and Pete. We became our own little group out there since Niel and Susan had already put themselves a good distance ahead of us. The original plan for today was to just do the buoy line so I decided we’d swim until we hit the other two coming back and just turn to join them. This plan didn’t work out so well because the Niel and Susan ended up turning for the top of the pier instead. When I saw this I pulled together my group and we turned a little early to try and catch up at the pier.

everything looks a little hazy because the cold fogged up my camera lens!

I just missed them leaving the pier by like 30 seconds but had put a lot of distance between me and the others in my group in the process. That left me to float for a while, luckily by this point I had gotten a grip on the water temperature. As the other 3 swam towards me I was drifting straight out from the beach. The wind had really picked up in a hurry and was building a little current and some chop.

watching the rest of my group swim up to the top of the pier

When we had everyone present and accounted for we decided to swim it straight back down the pier. This leg of the swim was straight into the wind and the building chop, but everyone did pretty well with it. At about the mid point of the pier Niel and Susan crossed back into our line and joined us for the swim into the beach.

not much of a swim today, only .8 miles but I spent 37 minutes in the water

On the beach I never broke down into a shiver but I was definitely cold. I dried off and changed right away into some jeans and a sweatshirt while everyone else went to the showers. I sat in the sun to recharge and watch everybody’s stuff until they came back.

After the swim I went to SLO for some lunch and then spent some time in Morro Bay. I dropped in on Central Coast Standup Paddling to actually see the shop. I got in on their demo day last month but haven’t been to the shop yet. I’m still a tire kicker, but I’m pretty sure I’m going to be the proud owner of an SUP of my own by summer :)

January 9, 2011 | No Comments »

Break Time is Over

I took a few days off after my big Polar Bear Swim to relax (minus a big workout consisting of 100m swim and 25 minutes in the hot tub on Sunday), but I started to get back to work this afternoon. I’m still in contemplation mode as far as what my next big goal swim is, but I know it’s going to be long so I better start swimming!

Today wasn’t a big workout but we worked the main set pretty hard. Gotta have those shorter intense days interspersed in the week right? We were 5 swimmers deep today and nobody really had a plan so I made up a set after we did our stock warm up. It’s fair to say it was met with a little hesitation… you know the set is a good one when everyone stalls for a second but doesn’t want to be the first one to complain about it :) I think everybody liked it once they were done though, if you’re only going to swim 2200 yards you might as well make it worth it! I just liked that I got to do strokes other than freestyle just to move my joints in new directions.

200 swim
200 kick
200 swim

4 X 100 Kick with Fins @ 1:45

Repeat x 2
4 x 50 IM Order @ 1:00
2 x 100 IM @ 1:45
200 IM @ 3:30

2200 yards total

The intervals were a little loose to give everybody a chance to make it and most of us held together through the set. i would have liked to do one more round but we didn’t really have the time. I think starting next week we’ll have actual workouts planned for here through SCY Nationals in Mesa. We’ve got some people interested so Mike planned out the next few months for us to get prepped.

double mustache... it's like a double rainbow but far less desirable

In other news… thank you to everybody that has shared my polar bear swim story on their blogs and facebook pages, sent me congratulations, watched today’s Morning Swim Show segment, and made donations! I’m totally bowled over at how much good coverage the swim got, and as an added bonus it gave me a chance to do some good in my neighborhood. We raised what’s looking to be about $1500+ for the SLO Food Bank! You can still donate through Friday if you’re so inclined. I’m pretty stoked that on top of locals donating I’ve had dollars come from Washington State, Chicago, New York, and even Moscow! I think there’s a very real possibility this swim will go down again next year but I’ll have a little company :)

And randomly… I’m looking for a surfboard… I want to learn how to ride this year so if anybody has a lead on a cheap (like sub $300) used board that large gentleman/beginner appropriate in the central coast area I’d appreciate it! As long as it’s reasonably solid and I don’t have to fix anything I’m in, don’t care if it’s ugly as long as it works!

January 6, 2011 | No Comments »

Check Me Out on the Morning Swim Show!

I feel all famous, I made it on Swimming World Magazine’s Morning Swim Show! We did a little interview recently over Skype about my Pismo Polar Bear Swim and open water swimming in general. It’s not so often I wind up in front of a camera talking, but I think it went pretty well… check it out!

Now I just need to figure out how to get on the cover of the magazine :) I might not be the fastest swimmer in the world, but I am probably one of the only ones with their own branded banana hammocks. I mean yeah, Lochte has his fancy green shoes but I have confirmation of people wearing Zebra striped speedos with my name on them on two different continents! That’s gotta be worth something right?

Haha, anyways… like I allude to in the video I’ve got some planning to do and lots of work to do to get ready! After a few days of relaxing I get back to business Thursday afternoon in Santa Maria and there’s rumors of 11,000 meters that need to be swum on Saturday at Kennedy so I need to get ready for that!

January 5, 2011 | 1 Comment »

More 2011 Pismo Polar Bear Swim Coverage…

Yesterday’s swim has really gotten a lot of people excited about open water and I’m still really stoked on the whole thing! I made it on the news last night at KSBY (click here to see the video) and I got a great write up from the Daily News of Open Water Swimming as well (read the article here). I even got a mention from a swim blog in the Faroe Islands!

This morning I got my hands on some video clips from the LiveSwim livestream so you can see a little more of what was going on out in the ocean, check it out!



I’ve gotten tons of positive feedback on the livestreaming experience. A lot of far away friends and locals told me that they were glued to their computers for like 3 hours watching the swim! Unfortunately we couldn’t stream the last hour due to rain but Chris did shoot some video of me getting to the Pismo Pier. I think as far as technological experiments at sea go this was a total success!

As a side note for those of you that don’t live around here… although yesterday was a pretty rough and tumble day for a swim today looks to be way worse… it’s been raining a lot with plenty of wind. I totally lucked out that my swim wasn’t today!

January 2, 2011 | 11 Comments »

2011 Pismo Polar Bear 10k Swim

I’ve wanted to conquer this stretch of ocean for such a long time and I am very happy to report I made the whole swim! I think it’s fair to say that today’s outing was a very legit open water ocean swim… a 10k that turned into 11k in 53 degree water with no wetsuit that ended up running 4 hours because I had to fight the ocean the whole way… there was no free ride today, I earned this one! This isn’t my longest swim ever but it’s definitely in the running for the hardest! It’s also not the coldest Polar Bear swim in the country, but I’m pretty sure it was the only marathon open water swim going on today!

My day started really early, like way earlier than it needed too. I managed to fall asleep at right about midnight with intentions of waking up at 5am. Instead I was up pacing the house by 3:45. On top of just being anxious to go out and swim my body was in pre-heat mode. I was sweating buckets in bed, apparently my body knew what to expect today and turned up the heat! I spent a few hours fidgeting with my bags for today (one for the start in Avila and another for the finish in Pismo), and messing around on Facebook and Twitter hoping to take my mind off of things. Around 6:30am I hopped in the truck and drove to Port San Luis. The sun still wasn’t up but you could see that the ocean was looking reasonably calm so far. I was just stoked it wasn’t raining! I was however pretty worried about what kind of weather was hiding behind the mountains.

Niel, Dave VM, and I pre swim in the Port

 

I parked at the water’s edge in the port and Niel pulled in right beside me just a moment later, as we were saying good morning I got a text from Captain Mike of the Seaweed Express who was going to be driving the Zodiac to let me know he was there too and getting his boat set up. While Niel was getting his kayak prepped Chris from LiveSwim.net showed up with all his gear to do an experimental livestream and Dave Van Mouwerik wasn’t too far behind him. So far so good. All my guys were on time and accounted for and it wasn’t raining, my confidence was rising. While everyone was getting set we had one more guy join us at the Port, Chip. I’ve only had the chance to swim with him once before and he’s a pretty cool guy.

Seaweed Express boat en route to load up Chris and Niel's Kayak

 

About 10 minutes to 8 the guys took off in the boat towing the kayak to the Avila Pier and I hopped in Dave’s car so that I could start from the beach… only one problem with that… the car didn’t start! Luckily Chip was still in the parking lot and I’m not one to freak out when little things go wrong. We laughed it off and hopped in Chip’s car to make way to downtown Avila. I was greeted there by my parents and group of my open water swim friends. It was a really cool way to start the whole swim with my friends and family there supporting my adventure… as an added bonus I think that this was the first time my folks have seen me swim in person since I came back to the sport via masters swimming. I stripped down and greased up on the sidewalk and then walked down to the Port side of the Avila pier. Once I saw the zodiac boat in range I gave my mom a hug and then started my walk into the water.

walking in to get things started!

 

It wasn’t too warm, surprise right? At least the air temp was probably a balmy 47 about then :) I don’t think the air temp ever got much past 52 today. Once I had waded in to my stomach I decided to dive through a wave and just go for it. I swam up the face of a few inbound waves like I would normally have to, but they just kept coming! This was probably the hardest I’ve ever worked just to get to the end of this pier, yikes. I was a little worried that the rest of the day was going to be like this (surprise! it was), but I decided it didn’t matter what the ocean threw at me I wasn’t getting out until I hit Pismo.

swimming to the end of the Avila pier

 

I met up first with the zodiac and then Niel came up from behind in the kayak. Much like myself, he was getting tossed all over the place. Basically we had 2 things working against us today. One, big swells were coming from the southwest pushing me back towards Avila. Two, winds were blowing from the south east building chop on top of the rollers. Fun right? I got a lot of face fulls of water instead of air while trying to breathe on this swim!

this breath looks like it's going to be more water than air...

 

leaving Avila Beach for opener ocean

 

The swim down through Avila and out to Bird Rock seemed to go really quickly for me. Actually getting past Bird Rock was a little unpleasant though. The water was pretty dirty all around it and I had to adjust course to push out even further as I passed it to keep out of the muck. I didn’t want dirt and bird poo in my beard for the next hour!

swimming past Bird Rock... I'll give you one guess as to what that white stuff on it is... ewwww

 

Not too far past this is where I took my only “solid” feed of some GU. My stomach was a little out of sorts the whole trip and I decided to just stick to liquids the rest of the day. For liquids I was just drinking regular purple Gatorade. I don’t take hot feeds even in cold water, it’s not really for me. Our feeds were a little tricky though because as soon as Niel would stop paddling the swell would push him away from me back towards Avila. Actually getting the bottle from the boat into my hands wasn’t particularly easy to get accomplished, plus I couldn’t egg beater kick too much because I was cramping in my right upper thigh and really didn’t want to make that lock down.

Niel giving me my bottle... we stopped to feed every 25-30 minutes

 

We spent a long time swimming along Shell Beach crawling over the occasional stalks of kelp and other excitement. Shell Beach in and of itself is a pretty small place, just a thin strip of homes along the coast but it’s long and I was looking at those cliffs for a pretty long time… well I tried to look at them anyways. I mainly breathe right so I was looking out towards Japan most of the time. I would try occasionally breathe to the left or sight forwards and that was largely a bust because the water around me was always too tall to actually see anything over it. The photos really don’t do justice to the textural mess I was in… once I have some video in hand I think that’ll give you guys a better idea of what was going on out there.

those cliffs are a major reason why this swim is tricky... no way out of the water for a few miles

 

Somewhere in the middle of Shell Beach while stopped for a feed Chris informed me that my coach, Nancy from CVMM, had been watching the livestream and text messaging him! She wanted to let me know she was watching and I was looking good.

Pismo Pier in sight

 

After a while I started getting a little frustrated that I hadn’t seen the Pismo Pier yet. I knew it was out there but I couldn’t see it through the chop. To add to the fun the rain finally hit us. Not too big a deal to me at this point but the rest of my crew didn’t seem to be too excited about it. It did seem to make the chop lay down at least temporarily though which was nice for me. While stopped for a feed I was finally picked up by a swell enough to see the pier… almost there… awesome. I knew it was that “it looks close but it isn’t” kind of close, but visual confirmation that I had at least entered the right zip code was good enough for me.

Niel paddling with me to the pier while friends and family watch from above!

 

We turned in a little bit and started to aim for the top of the pier. As we got closer I could actually see where we were going thanks to the Christmas tree decoration at the tip of the pier. The one thing that wasn’t going so well was we were now moving just about parallel to the swell and Niel’s kayak kept getting tossed at me. I tried to keep my distance but the water was really unpredictable and we ended up a lot closer to each other than we probably wanted to be quite a few times.

With maybe 500m left to go before the pier I took one last feed. I needed it because I was started to cramp in my arms and pecs. Unfortunately about 30 seconds after I started to swim again I also started throwing up. I yakked 3 times in a row pretty hard. I’ve never done that on a swim before. I’m blaming the sea water I kept swallowing by accident. I stopped briefly to recompose myself and then went back to swimming. Luckily the desire to throw up didn’t return!

Dave VM's view of us en route to Pismo from the top of the pier

 

At the tip of the pier my I took leave of my boat escorts because they couldn’t come in any further due to the waves breaking out there. I said a quick thank you to Niel for being such a champ about kayaking in the cold, wind and rain then turned towards the beach. I could hear my friends up top yelling down at me… totally awesome way to finish a swim :) I picked up the pace to about the middle of the pier and then hit water shallow enough to just stand up in. My swim buddy Jason who is also a beach lifeguard was there with his truck waiting for me. He flashed the lights and gave me a little shot of the siren as I crossed onto the sand. I was done. What a ride!

victory!

 

Celebrating with Jason who was doing his best to make sure I was ok after my swim

 

Jason put the tailgate on the truck down to give me somewhere to sit and tossed me a jacket. A lady on the beach who said she’d been watching me swim since Shell Beach loaned me a towel to dry off a little. As the whole experience was sinking in a whole parade of friends and family came down the beach from the pier to congratulate me and ask me about the swim. I had kind of a hard time getting the words out, my face was pretty frozen. Maybe 5 minutes after getting out I broke into a shiver. I never shiver so this was pretty weird for me, but I figure 4 hours in 53 degree water is kinda supposed to do that to you. I towel changed into dry clothes and hung out for as long as I could stand it, but after not too long I had to roll. My girlfriend drove me home and I tossed myself in the shower for a while to warm up. I still shivered a bit for another 15 minutes or so but once I shook it off I was good to go. I feel totally fine now besides some chaffing on my right side and some tight muscles.

bundled up post swim on the beach with my folks

 

A write up of any swim like this wouldn’t be complete without some major thank yous!!! First and foremost a huge thank you to Niel. He’s been a great training partner and volunteered to kayak this swim without hesitation. It must have been totally miserable up on the water and he didn’t complain and kept me on a straight line all the way down the coast. I don’t even know how I’m going to repay this favor… but I am hugely appreciative and grateful to have him on my side! Captain Mike and the Seaweed Express rocked as my zodiac boat back up. They were fun, on time, on task and accommodating of my fairly out of the ordinary New Year’s Day boat charter. I’m also really thankful Chris from LiveSwim managed to make it up for the swim. He streamed video from the front of the zodiac almost the whole time (had to cut it for a while due to rain and laptops not mixing well), and shot a lot of the pictures in this post. He’s been really supportive of what I do here on Rob Aquatics for a long time now and I’m glad the both of us continue to find ways to work together on exciting projects and experiments! I also want to thank my local swim friends from the Santa Maria Masters and the Avila Dolphins for swimming with me and supporting me in my crazy adventures. I had pool swim friends waiting for me on the beach and open water friends cheering for me from on the pier… it was totally great and the support means a whole lot to me. Having experienced guys from that crowd like Dave VM(he actually ran this as a sanctioned Masters summer time race a long time ago) calling me up on the phone in the lead up to the swim offering any help they can really helped take some of the pressure off me to figure everything out. Beyond that major thank yous to those of you that donated money to the fundraising portion of my swim. Local businesses really stepped up with donations and swim friends and readers from SLO County and places as far away as Chicago and New York also pitched in along with folks who read about my swim in Friday’s paper. I’m going to leave the donation button up on the website a couple more days in case anybody still wants to toss in a few bucks.

the Seaweed Express Boat!

 

Niel dripping wet from manning the kayak in rain, wind, chop and big swells

 

the liveswim view from the bow of the boat!

 

Now that this adventure is done and I’ve finally done the swim I’ve been wanting for so long it’s time to take a day and enjoy it… then start to find the next one!

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