Swim Around the Rock (5/7/06)

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Thanks Bill for our first report of the 2006 season!

A new open water swim season began with the start of Nite Moves and the first Playa Del Run coming apace. On May 7, however was the first annual Swim Around the Rock, put on by Water World, Pedro Ordones' company. Pedro and Gary Emich are the record holders for swimming from Alcatraz. They are tied with several hundreds swims each. The SAR was an attempt to repeat for outsiders one of the signature swims of the South End Rowilng Club and the Dolphin Club, a swim from Aquatic Park in San Francisco, around Alcatraz(also known as the world's largest swim buoy And probably the world's most famous island prison).

At the detailed pre-race briefing the water temperature was predicted to be 59 degrees. That turned out to be slightly high. The water inside the aquatic park breakwater was 56 and outside about 57. The course was supposedly 3.2 miles.

It was a beautiful day with the sun shining, no fog, calm water on the swim out and only a late swim ebb tide pulling swimmers off course. The latter made several swims longer than predicted, but if the aforementioned detailed pre-race briefing had been followed the ebb tide would not have been a problem. That's a whoops in case you can't tell.

The race organizers, for a race which was only 30 swimmers, had several boats and 14 kayakers so safety was prioritized. With the additional requirement that swimmers either qualify or present some evidence of being able to complete the course, everyone finished. The field was impressive with numerous English and Catalina channel crossers, and some others with less identifiable accomplishments.

The overall winner for the male "skins" was Forrest Nelson, fresh from his slightly warmer Oahu to Molokai swim earlier this year, in 1:20 and change. The overall swim champ was a woman, Kara Nazar in a suit, followed by a 15 year old girl without a suit, Toni Diaz. The first suited man was Joe Lundry.

Jenny Cook was the second suited woman, followed by San Diegan Phil Garn, the second skin only man, and then by former San Diegan Bill Ireland who was the third skin only man. (I'm still not sure how I was ahead of Phil on the backside of the island before he passed me). Several other La Jolla cove-folk dud the swim including Andy Hewitt.

To give some idea of splits(for me), it was about 27 minutes from start to the east point of Alcatraz. 10 minutes across the back, then about 50 minutes in to the finish with some extra swimming fighting against the ebb flow to get back to the opening to aquatic park.

Jenny was cheered on by her parents. Forrest Nelson was cheered on by his parents, old family friends and fellow Rose Bowlers, Jamie Marian and Cindy Miller. Suzie Nicolletti and Kris Behrens watched the finish and managed to conceal their disappointment that they were only watching and not swimming.

Fun swim. Worth doing and well organized with an organizational meeting the night before, and as mentioned before detailed briefings and lots of kayakers.