Ugly old girlfriend

I don't mean to be shallow, but I really kind of am.

When you were a kid did you ever see an old girlfriend and say to yourself "Wow, you've sure changed!"  When actually you were simply blinded by love?  That's how I felt after swimming again in Bountiful Lake last night.  It was my first swim in BL since May 13th.  Well over a month ago.  All my OW swims since then have been in GSL.  I prefer GSL now over BL, mainly because it is so much cleaner!  It's also warmer.  In the GSL the visibility underwater in many spots is well over 10 feet.  But in Bountiful Lake it's consistently dirty and about a 1.5 foot visibility underwater.  Last evening's swim was about 66°F with warm and cold spots.  Very comfortable even without a wetsuit.

When I drove up to the parking lot at BL in preparation for an OW clinic, I saw a huge pile of debris floating in a very slight whirlpool type flow near the boat ramp.  I could tell most of it was just plant matter that had floated in the runoff, as well as some large wood logs, but something looked hairy out there.

Josh and I got Jacob in the kayak loaded up with the cinderblocks and the buoy for practicing turns.  I swam next to Jacob near the debris and told him to hold up.  That hairy thing was definitely a dead animal.  As we approached we voiced our predictions, "A dead beaver, no a cat, no a dog!" I found a very large stick floating amongst all the debris.  I used it to lift the stinky corpse onto the front of the kayak.  It was a dead baby deer.  A  fawn.  It was only about 20 pounds.  It must have floated into the lake in the runoff along with all the other debris.  We paddled to shore and disposed of the dead animal in a garbage can.

The clinic went well.  We discussed several techniques while by the boat ramp and then walked down to the fishing pier to enter the water and practice our swims.  There were many new OW swimmers and it was cool to see their excitement and feel their nervousness with the new experience.  But they all got through it and appeared to enjoy themselves.  There were 18 people in the water.  We practiced sighting a few times and doing buoy turns.  During one of those practices I went for it and ended up breathing to the side and instantly got a mouthful of water.  I was swimming so close to the other swimmers that were simulating a sprint to the buoy, and again, ended up swallowing it instinctively.  Gross!

A bit of an upset stomach this morning.  I think I'll stick to my current girlfriend - the Great Salt Lake!  She may be a bigger girl, and much moodier than average, but dude, trust me, she's way more virtuous than some of those "freshwater" chics.  Can you tell I love metaphors!

Today's swim will be a 6.5 mile swim with Jacob from Antelope Island to Fremont followed up with some serious backpacking up to the peak, then camping.  Tons of fun in store!


0.25 mile total (estimated)