Holy crap… those were some crazy waves, last Saturday! And they only got bigger as the swim went on! But hey… we’re LOSTies… we can swim in anything. And 79 LOSTies did! Woohoo!
On the up side… the water was really nice and warm. 72F/22C. That’s about as warm as Lake O gets, at least where we swim. It gets warmer down at the Kingston end, but low 70’s is pretty nice. In fact, if any lake gets a lot warmer than that, it can get kinda gross and stinky.
But swimming in clean water in any lake is all about circulation. And Lake O is no different. And what I mean by that is, you want to swim where the water circulates. And that might be counter-intuitive to where you would think. You might think that swimming in a nice, protected little bay, that is shallow and warm, would be a good place to swim. But you’d be wrong.
The best place to swim is where the water circulates. And where we swim is among the best places to swim in Lake Ontario… or in Ontario… or the world for that matter.
We don’t swim in a protected little bay. The deepest part of Lake O is just a little ways from where we swim. It isn’t shallow where we swim. And when the Lake does roll over, we get that clean, fresh water from the bottom of the Lake washing up on our shores. Which is why it’s often cold where we swim too.
Having said that, I am really, really surprised that we haven’t had a single roll-over this year. But I just checked the water temp map and it looks like it has rolled over finally! Now, because it is late in the season, it doesn’t look like it is a very severe one, it shows low 60’s. Which is fine. (PS. Dylan is renovating the LOSTswimming.com website, so check out all the new features, like the WEATHER tab… thanks, Dylan!).
But this week was really all about the waves, not the temp. Unfortunately, Mike wasn’t able to make it out to kayak for us… but as I told him later, it wouldn’t have mattered… you couldn’t have gotten out there in a kayak anyway! I was out on the SDP (Sit-down Paddle Board!) and I was barely able to do it! Geoff and I had to continually drag the buoys back out, as they were getting washed up on shore, even with the big weights on the bottom!
Which reminds me of 2 things… 1) congrats to Geoff and Darren for completing the 6-7 hour downwind SUP race in Hawaii! You essentially surf and paddle for 47km! Now those are waves!… 2) and a big tip of the hat to Loren! He attempted to swim the English Channel last week! Unfortunately he didn’t have a good day and didn’t make it. He swam for about 4 1/2 hours in 18C water, before he had to pack it in. Tough day, and sh*t happens… but it will still make for better stories over beers!
The other event last weekend was the first annual “Toronto Mile” and “GSS Canadian Chanmpionships” at the Toronto Triathlon Festival!
Congrats to all the LOSTies that participated! Which was about half the entries! It poured rain… but at least it was flat water, unlike the day before! A really nice course. Well marked, and in the middle of a cool event. The TTF had about 1500 participants and is the largest tri festival in Canada! They also all got these LOST Race postcards in each bag! haha.
Anyway, more good swimming lined up for tomorrow… see you on the beach!
Cheers,
Rob