I’ve been swimming with a Garmin 310xt GPS unit for almost a year now, and I have to say it is a fantastic piece of gadgetry. I got it for Christmas last year (thanks mom!) and have put it through the paces in the ocean, a couple lakes, and even a little bit with my bike. It’s a device that’s touted to be waterproof that actually appears to be waterproof! Amazing! There’s no holes or ports in it which gives it limited opportunities to fail. The charging is done via metal connections on the outside of the unit and data is uploaded wirelessly… I wish waterproof cameras worked like this! I will say the 310xt is pretty crazy expensive ($350ish), but I’ve definitely gotten a lot of value out of mine.

When I got the 310xt my first order of business was to get the Garmin software set up on my computer. The unit comes with a USB device that wirelessly downloads your data which is super suave and part of why this particular waterproof device doesn’t fail. The problem is being a guy that works with computers I figured I’d just set it up without reading anything, no problem right? Wrong! If you do things out of order the set up is going to suck… a lot. Before you do anything get out the directions, read them, and then follow one by one through the set up process… trust me on this one! I was pretty thoroughly frustrated while trying to get things set up!

After I had the software sorted out it was time to swimmerize it. My 310xt started life as a watch, but it’s no so great for tracking your position in water while swimming if it’s wrist based. Water and satellites don’t necessarily get along. I hear a software update has helped that situation out a lot, but I can’t speak to that as I’ve never used it in that fashion since I did some surgery and removed the straps. I kept the little metal things that held the straps on and then used some velcro to loop around all that to allow me to attach the unit to my goggles. I swim with a cap over the top of all that to hold it onto my noggin so it’s always (well almost) above the water for the best signal. As a side note… part of why I chose the 310xt as opposed to other newer devices from Garmin was the shape. It’s fairly flat on the backside and doesn’t dig into your head when held down with a cap. Some of the newer units were smaller but much more curved and wouldn’t have worked out as well under a swim cap.

Operation of the unit is fairly simple. Hold a button to turn it on, wait for it to find satellite signal, push a button to start it, push the same button to stop it, hold the lap button down to clear it out. All of this can be easily done without looking at the screen, I do most of it on the back of my head with a cap over it. There’s other more advanced features and settings you can mess with, but frankly I’ve never used most of them or needed them. Whatever defaults I set when I first got it have served me pretty well. Once you’re done swimming you just need to turn it on within range of the wireless usb device and it will download your swim data and upload it to the Garmin Connect Website where it will plot it to a map and give you all kinds of cool stats, I really dig that. You can send other people links to your workout, or view your workout data from anywhere with an internet connection. Super suave.

While swimming I don’t notice the unit much, but if it’s a long swim… like 6+ miles… it can get uncomfortable if a tight cap is involved. On my own training swims where I used my own caps that were a little stretched out for my huge head I was ok, but in long races with fresh tight new caps it was headache city and in a few cases I ended up tossing it into the support kayak. One thing that I really like about having it on me while swimming is I get a buzz every 1000m letting me know where I’m at, assuming I manage to correctly count the buzzes.

Although I doubt the lines it pulls are totally perfect, they seem to be very good. I get the occasional irrational hop or squiggle in my lines that is obviously wrong, but you can get too mad about that. You’re tracking your movements in the ocean with the help of devices floating in outer space, let’s just go ahead and agree that’s amazing and we don’t get to complain about an occasional glitch :)

All told I think the Garmin 310xt is an excellent piece of swim dork-ery and if you like to know exactly(ish) how far you swim in open water and don’t like money I compel you to go get one. You can buy the 310xt from SwimOutlet.

As one gets deeper into bigger and bigger swims, it ceases to be a sport where you just show up and swim… all of a sudden you need a team, and a plan, and often times a way to transport a kayak or paddleboard. That last part is a huge pain in the ass.

Last October when I did the Distance Swim Challenge I needed to have 2 vehicles capable of kayak transport to get my paddler’s boat to the start and then back to her car since the race provided zero logistical support for kayak moving. Beth had a rack on her car, and luckily I had a truck and we just tied the kayak down as many places as we could and hoped for the best as we drove along the west side of LA. Not an ideal situation, every turn and gust of wind stressed me out on that drive. As it became more apparent that paddler supported swims were going to become a bigger part of my life I decided that I needed the appropriate rack on my truck to make that safer and easier.

I poked around online for a while and figured I either needed a fancy Thule or Yakima type rack system, or maybe a basic welded one-piece rack you see on construction workers trucks’ might do just as well. I wasn’t really sure since I’d never had anything like this before. I went down to Sea Shells Truck Accessories down the street from my office and talked with one of the guys there for a bit to figure out what I should get. It turned out that a nice looking adjustable rack wasn’t that much more than an ugly non-adjustable rack so I decided to spring for the good stuff and buy a Thule Xsporter Rack. They ordered it up and a week or so later I had them install it. The rack MSRPs around $600 but they swung me a little bit of a deal, and installation was $60.

The Thule Xsporter is all aluminum and the posts are fully adjustable with multiple heights possible. Put the rack up when you need it, put it down when you don’t. It takes a few minutes to adjust the cross bars to a new height, but it’s not that big of a deal. In a big truck you can put the bars all the way down to the top of the truck bed, but in my Ranger the bed isn’t deep enough. I can still get them below my cab though which is great for cutting wind noise. Speaking of… this thing whistles pretty bad when it’s at it’s above the cab! It comes with some rubber stuff to jam into it to cut that down but I’ve never installed it. I find turning the radio up to be a much easier solution :) The reason the whistling channels exist up there is for some really cool sliding holder thingies (possibly not the correct technical term). I really like that extra bit of stabilizing hold.

Randomly the rack also makes for a sweet drying rack and prep station before swimming or bodyboarding. I can hang my fins off the cross bars, and with the help of a bungee bed-net in my truck I have numerous instant clotheslines that I can hook into the slots of the posts. I always have a bunch of suits and shorts out back air drying. It may not be particularly secure, but I’m pretty sure most thieves don’t want to steal speedos that are either sparkly, animal printed or have my name on them :)

One unexpected consequence that you need to be prepared for if you purchase this rack is that old men WILL want to talk to you. It’s a pretty sexy rack with exquisite welding, total dude magnet. People will also think you must be much more interesting than you really are because only someone super serious about fun would have such an expensive looking truck rack.

I’ve had the Xsporter rack since April and I really dig it. I’ve driven kayaks all over between Lake Lopez to the north and Laguna Beach to the south. I think I seriously put 500ish miles on the truck with Lynn K’s kayak on top between her swim and Cliff’s back in August with no problems whatsoever. It’s attractive, functional and of high quality. If you have a truck and want something to carry kayaks, canoes, SUPs, paddleboards, etc I’m not sure why you’d go buy anything else.

You can learn more about the Xsporter and buy it online from Thule.com, or pop into any truck accessory shop or specialty sports shop that carries Thule products.

Churchills are one of the classic fins of the surf world. They’ve been around since the 30′s and they are the fins I’m using most right now when bodyboarding or bodysurfing. The fins are shaped differently for each foot and they’re marked right and left on top to make sure you put them on the right way. When you put them together they look like a dolphin’s tail fin. Thanks to the shape of the fin they’re relatively easy to walk in, and that outside edge is great for digging into a wave to steer and adjust your speed in a wave. These fins are definitely surf only in my opinion. If you were to do more than chase down waves with them they’d probably destroy your knees and ankles.

From what I understand the fins are made with two types of rubber. The blue part is soft and comfortable on the feet for the foot pocket, and yellow part is much stiffer. I think that these fins have a nice balance of comfort and performance. The foot pocket feels good and hasn’t chewed my feet up at all and the heel strap hasn’t given me any trouble, although I’ve recently put neoprene fin pads on them anyways. Sometimes I feel like maybe the foot pockets are too soft and flex too much, but I’d rather have that than bloody feet. The blade is stiff enough to provide decent propulsion. I’d like them to be a little stiffer though so I can kick faster, but I’ll take what I can get.

The fins have a drainage hole on the bottom which is a must for surf fins that are prone to getting rocks and sand in them. The only problem is that it’s a little too far to the middle of the foot which makes it harder to drain effectively. I’d like to see it closer to the toes so the debris can just flow right out instead of rub between my feet and the inside of the fin. I’m assuming however that since the design is 45 years older than I am it’s not going anywhere.

Churchies are pretty easy to find, a lot of sporting goods stores have them. You can buy them online through SwimOutlet, or 662BoardShop.com

Duckfeet are the classic ocean lifeguard fin, they all have a pair somewhere. Big, heavy, crazy stiff, and capable of providing major thrust when you need it. I’ve had my Duckfeet for quite a while and really like them. They’re not perfect for most things I do but they’re pretty ok at just about everything. I’ve bodyboarded and body surfed with them, and they’ve been used to pace swim in the Catalina Channel for Chris D, Cliff C. and Evan M. My duckfeet are a permanent fixture in the back of my truck ready to go anytime I need them.

Duckfeet start out pretty tight and rough on the feet. As a matter of fact your feet won’t like these at all when you first take them out. Stick with it though. After a while they’ll stretch out a bit and become a lot more comfortable. I ended up buying some neoprene fin pads for the heel strap just to make sure it stayed that way.

If you need an all around ocean swim fin this is a solid choice. If you’re looking for a pool fin, this ain’t it. If you’re serious about using fins for surfing these are ok but you’re better off buying something more surf specific like Churchills, Lagunas, or Vipers.

Duck Feet are pretty easily available at sporting good shops, I got mine at Big5, or you can buy them online here.

Instagram is hands down my favorite iPhone app. It’s free and it helps you make pretty pictures, what’s not to like? I’ve used Instagram pictures heavily on this site, it makes ok shots a lot better. Instagram has various filters that you can apply to your shots and even allows you to direct the focus with a tilt-shift effect. The learning curve to the app is small, and after a while you’ll start taking pictures with certain filters in mind.

If you have an iPhone (it’s not available on other platforms right now, sorry Android users) go download this! It’s awesome! You can follow me on Instagram as aquarob.

Here are some random Instagram shots I’ve taken…

I received the latest H2O Audio Interval Case way back in April and never managed to crank out much of a review. It’s not that I didn’t want to, I found it interesting and a solid step up from the previous H2O Audio Interval case I had tested, it was just the wrong time of year for me. Music while swimming season starts about right now for me. Listening to music in the water is a kind of antisocial thing to do when swimming with a group, and a bad idea when swimming in open water, so it’s mainly my solo nighttime 50m pool workouts where I do the most aquatic rocking out.

This version of the Interval has a lot going for it. The buttons are easy to use, the seal is very secure, it’s been contoured to fit the back of your head better, it has handy slots for goggle straps… but its biggest advantage over everyone else (besides SwimMan which I’ve never tried) is that it uses an actual iPod to deliver music (purchased separately, all you’re buying from H2O Audio is a waterproof case). This might not sound like much until you’ve tried to sync up other devices from your iTunes account. Apple’s file format doesn’t jive with other devices so you have to convert the songs you want on your other music players, it’s not hard but it’s a hassle. So using an actual iPod allows you to just plug in, make a playlist and go. The only real problem I have with it is actually getting the music into my ears. The 4th generation case has been much, much better in this regard than the 2nd gen case I have… but it still fails eventually due to the buds falling out or the seal with my ear being broken. H2O Audio sent me their Pro Fit Kit that has numerous types of rubber covers for the buds which helped enormously, but over time the water always wins.

So Here’s how I feel about this particular case… it’s good, much better than previous iterations, but it’s not my first choice for intensive swim training. If I were on a kayak, SUP, or participating in some other water surface sport where you’re going to submerge occasionally this would be my go to gadget. But as a swimmer, it all comes down to ear buds… eventually the seal is broken and now it’s time to fidget with your gear and throw your workout off track. I really, really dislike that.

The H2O Audio Interval is available through SwimOutlet, or you can get it along with many other waterproof items at H2Oaudio.com

(*full bloggerly disclosure, the case I tested out for this review was sent to me by H20 Audio)

This board was my promotion from a cheap big board to something a little more serious. It started out as a $200 board but I got it for quite a bit less on sale ($140). It has all the good stuff… composite stringer, 8lb deck, Surlyn slick, 50/50 rails, deck contours, etc. The board surfs well and you can feel the quality just holding or floating on it. I think I made a tactical error when ordering it though. I went an inch or two too short which is a big deal in terms of performance. Although the size is perfect for my height it doesn’t have as much buoyancy as I’d like for my weight.

I recently took my old cheaper 662 board out in some medium sized surf and in a few areas it outperformed my highend board since it floated me better. That trip to the beach was actually a catalyst for me ditching the board for something new. I watch Craigslist for deals on boards and good board from a brand I wanted to try popped up for reasonably cheap so I hopped on it and put the Empire Botha up for sale. I took my new board (a Toobs Magnum) out last night and so far I dig it, it was a good decision.

The Botha was a great board, just not the right size for me. Next time I need/want a new bodyboard I’ll probably hit up local custom board maker Toobs to make me a board to order. It’s more expensive to do it this way but it’s still way cheaper than buying a surfboard :)

You can buy the Empire Botha via 662BoardShop.com or slightly used from me on Craigslist for $80 :)

Bluebeards Original Beard Care Kit

After accidentally winning a beard competition I decided to get serious about becoming a better beardsman. I figured the first thing I needed was a better shampoo and conditioning regimen to keep the adventure beard healthy and in top shape. I found Bluebeards online and decided to order their starter kit which consists of their shampoo, some conditioner, and a brush. The set itself was a little expensive, $54, but I figure the money I save on haircuts by being bald would balance it out :) The Beard Wash and Beard Saver combo work great together and smell good. My beard takes a lot of salt, chlorine and sunshine abuse and this stuff brings me back to a soft and manageable state. The brush is also very good. A comb tends to get all tangled up in the 6 or 7 inches worth of beard hanging from my face, but the boar hair bristled brush moves through smoothly and gets the knots out. The “handy shower bag” it comes in is a piece of crap however.

You can buy Bluebeards Orignal Beard Stuff here.

Man’s Face Stuff Gin and Tonic Mustache Wax

This stuff goes on well but because of it’s light color you really gotta make sure it’s worked all the way in on darker hair or else it’ll look like you sneezed in your mustache. It holds well but it’s not super solid. Would be great for someone trying to keep everything moving one direction, not necessarily the best choice if you trying to get your ‘stache to do tricks. As a bonus it actually smells like booze. Good luck explaining that one to the cops if you get pulled over! :) If you’re not into the Gin and Tonic smell this company also makes one with a mix of pipe tobacco and coffee (all nighter), cinnamon (red hot) and black licorice (huntsman).

These scented mustache waxes are available on Etsy by going to mansfacestuff.com.

Firehouse Mustache Wax – Wacky Tacky

This stuff is awesome. The hold is very very solid. It’s a darker wax that blends into my mustache well. I can’t quite put my finger on what it smells like, but it’s not unpleasant. If you’re looking to achieve a handlebar look or something even more ambitious than that, this is the stuff! Plus for the same price as the Gin and Tonic wax you get twice as much product.

This wax doesn’t appear to be any match for chlorine, pool water melts my mustache right down, but it holds up for a little while to salt water. I spent 75 minutes surfing in 57 degree water and came out with a misshapen but still moderately styled mustache! Your mileage may vary on that one however.

You can buy Firehouse Mustache Wax here

I LOVE these shorts. These are the best boardshorts I’ve ever owned. The only thing stopping me from buying 8 more pairs is that they’re almost $60 a pop. They fit well and have two options for tying the front for either casual wear or big waves. There’s no buttons or zippers, just laces and a velcro closure at the top. The material feels good and has a nice stretch to it. They’re great for when I’m just out messing around in the surf, but they’re also comfortable for swimming longer distances. When I did swim lessons during the summer I’d wear these quite a bit. The only thing I don’t like that much is the pocket. It’s hard to get things in and out of it while in the water because it’s not very structured and sometimes it feels more closed than it really is. I lost a cheap camera in small surf in these shorts. There is a good keyloop in there though. I have a spare in my shorts secured to that so I don’t have to try and hide my truck key somewhere else while I’m in the water.

You can buy these shorts at most surf shops or you can get them here from SwimOutlet

I’ve only been wearing them a week or so, but so far I dig them. I wasn’t sure if they’d be good for me at first because they sit so close to my eyes. I have long lashes and don’t like it when they brush against goggle lenses. Out in the water however I didn’t notice that at all. The fit is comfortable, the big gaskets allow the goggles to feel light on your face as opposed to super suctioned into your eye sockets. Where these goggles really shine is the range of vision. The way they’re shaped allows for a much wider field of vision than anything else I’ve ever worn. The lenses on the pairs I have are smoked but not mirrored, but they are polarized and cut glare just fine. I put a pair on my swim buddy Niel last week and he liked them as well. The light fit was an odd sensation for him but they stayed put and he could see well out of them. I think these would be great goggles for a very long swim.

At this early stage I really like the goggles and haven’t had any problems. The seal is good as well as the clarity. My only qualm is price. They’re pretty pricey at $40 a pair. Not that there aren’t other goggles in that price range and above, but I typically don’t fork out more than $20 for a pair of goggles personally. Good news is that if you buy them straight from FINIS I have a discount code for you :) Enter robaquatics09 at checkout to save some bucks.

Surge Goggles are available here, and you can save 20% on any purchases you make on FINIS’ site with the code: robaquatics09

(*full bloggerly disclosure, the goggles I tested out for this review were samples sent to me by FINIS)