Saturday, July 4, 2009 Evanston

We started the year with our mandatory July 4 swim. Earlier predictions of thunder proved incorrect, instead the forecast was changed to light rain. A few drops on the car windshield is all that we saw. The water was 64 F and glass smooth. It felt cold at first, mostly we have been swimming in a 77 degree pool, but as we swam our bodies adjusted and by the time we were done it didn't feel cold at all even though it was a cool cloudy day. Joe and I did a wall to wall swim, he doesn't like to come all the way out here unless we get some distance and was already looking forward to continuing south to the next turning point. We both had a bit of navigation problems with the low lighting and lack of an obvious horizon. The water was reasonably clear but would have seemed clearer if the sun was out. A good first swim of the season.

After the swim we stopped on the beach to talk to a man with a swimming dog. As we were chatting with him he was busted for the dog on the beach by some plain clothes cops or security, it was not clear which. Even though we were standing with goggles, caps and dripping wet the cops did not seem at all interested in us, which we took as a good sign. It will be interesting to see how tightly Chicago beaches are patrolled this summer as the guards will not be out until 11AM due to budget cuts. I did recently talk to a swimmer who is also a Chicago beach cop who threatened to arrest us if she saw us swimming during closed hours, I guess we won't invite her to join our lake swim group!