Forgot to mention that yesterday, Jamie asked about joining my swim. It had never occurred to me to have anyone join me. I was always told this was a solo swim since if we get a "group", we would need to have permission. Sylvia said that 2 is still fine before needing to get special permission. Jamie said he might join me. Once I heard he wanted to join me, I couldn't imagine doing the swim without him. It would only add to how great it would be. After a few phone calls, he said he would join. Could NOT have been more excited.
Jamie met us at SERC at 0400. We got our stuff and were on the boat by 0410 heading to the Oakland Bay Bridge. Water temp was 57.
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| 0400 ready to go |
Around 0440 we were at the bridge and greased up ready to go. I jumped in first and Jamie 5 seconds after me. He did ask right as I got in how the water was. It was PERFECT!! Calm water and FAST current. The skies were clear and the ambient light from San Francisco helped us see. The city was lit up on our left and looked great.
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| Oakland Bay Bridge |
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| Those green dots are us! |
Jamie and I swam nice and easy. We kept stopping every 5 minutes to make comments about how fast we were moving and how much fun we were having. At one point, I even yelled, "I CAN'T BELIEVE HOW MUCH FUN I'M HAVING"!!!
Patricia did great on the boat and Sylvia had to spend more time telling Jamie and I to shut up and swim than actually direct the boat! I could go between wanting to swim and forcing myself to stop to enjoy this great experience.
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| Almost there |
The sun was JUST creeping up when we got near the Golden Gate Bridge. Once we got really close to the bridge, Jamie got in the boat and I floated on my back to look up to see the underbelly of the bridge. It truly was magical. I finished the swim in 1 hour and 16 minutes. The main thing I did was swim easy and keep myself afloat. The current did 95% of the work! My kind of swim.
It was great to have Jamie with me. He is a great guy and a fun person to swim with. He did punch me in the head once when we swam next to each other. It was ok because I did get a handful of his ass a few times. It was dark and near Alcatraz it got pretty choppy. It was tough to see each other at times.
I made the swim in perfect timing. There was actually a cruise ship about to come in. The pilot was talking to the boat and making sure I could make the swim without getting run over. I won a game of chicken with a cruise ship....kinda.
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| Cruise ship |
Once we got on the boat, we could not stop smiling, laughing, and saying over and over again how much fun it was. EASILY in the top 3 of most enjoyable and memorable swims.
I can't thank Sylvia enough for setting this up for me. You were an amazing host and made me feel very comfortable the whole weekend. Thank you Jamie for joining me on such an amazing swim adventure. This goes on a OW swimmers bucket list.
Lastly, THANK YOU Patricia for coming with me. What makes this swim so great was that I got to share it with you. You did not feed the fish, which I'm proud of, and gave me great support. Thanks for coming along with me on this adventure.
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