Ohio Street - July 2, 2008

The 2008 season began with a slightly early 4th of July swim. After monitoring all the lake temperature sites I decided that only Ohio Street would be reliably warm enough for an outing. So Joe, Ken and I arrive about 6:15 AM. Parking was difficult, but there is one street left between a parking lot and construction with some spots, enough for our two cars. We get to the lake and already people are leaving the water, a good sign or not? Our first impressions not, it felt cold. But after we got started it felt better. In fact Joe and Ken, who are slightly faster than me in distance swimming, took off ahead. I thought we might discuss the water temperature at one of the landmarks, but I did not catch up with them until the end, now marked by a small orange bouy. The question was, is this as far as we go? My answer was yes. I looked at my watch, the water temperature was 63. Actually, I was slightly better prepared with a new thermal cap my older daughter gave me, at 38 she finally has discovered open water swimming. She found the cap at the Barracuda web site. Joe and Ken just had normal swim caps, and, of course, none of us had wetsuits. The swim back was actually nicer with the sun coming up, even though we were facing a stiff breeze. The water was clear, and although they say the Lake is a bit higher this year it still seemed very shallow to me. One could stand up almost the whole way, if one wanted to since much of the bottom seemed not very inviting what with rocks and algae. By the time we finished even more people had showed up, and by the time we were driving home, via Lakeshore Drive since the northbound Kennedy was a mess, the swim area was absolutely crowded, among others, even an age group swim team was there.