Ohio Street, June 5

It has finally turned hot in Chicago after a cool spring. But posted water temperatures seem warm so today was a good day to give it a try. At this time of year it makes sense to go to Ohio Street, no longer our favorite place due to low water levels and massive development of the area making parking scarce and expensive. But our new paradigm is to park north where parking is still plentiful and free and bike down. So we parked at Irving Park Rd and biked. As we passed North Avenue we noticed people actually swimming, even without wetsuits. This was very encouraging. And when we did get in the first sensation was warmth. As we got in further we found the warmth was only a few inches with very cold pockets deeper down. But overall we measured a very comfortable 63 average temperature. We swam to Chicago Avenue and back which is enough to make it an official swim, one of the earliest on record. A very pleasant day and a good start to what we hope will be a long season.