Evanston, September 21

Joe, Ken and I arrived early again, hoping to repeat our swim of Wednesday. We were hoping for as nice a swim, but an east wind yesterday left residual small waves (about a foot). On top of that a south wind was developing, leaving chop on top of the waves. Although the sky overhead was clear there were low clouds over the lake keeping the sunrise from being visible. When we got in it was really quite dark. This made for a somewhat difficult swim, in particular it was difficult swimming straight. The water and air temperatures were about the same however, 66 and 69 F respectively.

The three of us often pool swim together outdoors in the morning during the summer. Overall we are fairly compatible, but I have different speeds for different distances, I am fastest at the sprints and slowest at distances, Ken is sort of in the middle whereas Joe has one speed, which leaves him last in sprints but first in distance, which we don't do much of together in the pool. This and the fact that Joe peeled off to swim near the beach last time kept us from realizing that Joe is actually a natural open water swimmer. His somewhat wide stroke which looks awkward in the pool actually helps him in water like today. And we forget that Joe has a fair amount of California ocean swimming experience. So today when he peeled off towards shore midway on our outbound leg we assumed he was heading back. Imagine our suprise when we got to the wall and found him waiting for us. This happened again on the way back. We have renewed respect for his abilities.