Swim in the Great Salt Lake

Josh met at my house tonight at 6pm where Cathi, Jacob and I went out to Antelope Island and did a swim. We started out in the marina heading North outside the enclosure for the boats (there was only one boat stored at the docks which had probably 30-50 spots for boats).

The water was really warm. It felt like it was in the 70s. We swam west along the north end of Antelope Island. We stopped every 10-15 minutes to get a "rinse" and drink of gatorade. The salt was really strong at first, but as we headed further west it seemed to get a little less salty.

I found after a few minutes, that if I abandoned my bilateral breathing and stayed to the right, that I got less water in my mouth. After swimming about 35 minutes to the west I started touching the bottom with my hand. I stood up and the water was only about 2 feet deep. We noticed that we were coming to some shallows and that it was about time to turn around.

We swam back and I noticed that the chop was pretty good. At least it was more waves than I'm used to. As long as I kept my breathing to the right, I was pretty good about keeping the water out. Afterwards Cathi and Jacob said that I was lifting my head out of the water more than I normally do. As we neared the marina I noticed that the water got nastier again.

It's a good thing we had the trolling motor on the boat. It was nice for Jacob and Cathi to use. It has five speeds going forward and when it was put on 5 it was slightly faster than we swam, but 4 was slightly too slow. So as long as there isn't a ton of chop and wind, that trolling motor should do just fine. And as long as the battery is able to maintain that power.

Josh's GPS registered 2.5 miles and it took us 1:25. But we did alot of stopping, getting rinses and drinks, talking and just taking it nice and easy. There were alot of bugs. But none of us got eaten.

2.5 miles total

Looking forward to a long swim tomorrow morning out at BL.