Lake Andrea Swim Changes!

Big, big change in Lake Andrea swimming this year. This change is good for triathletes, but at the same time, if people abuse it, we’ll be back to a very tiny swim lane.

Here are the changes:

• There is no separate swim lane at the beach.
•  From 7am to 10am daily there are no lifeguards officially on duty.  You swim at your own risk.
•  This means you can swim outside the swim area ropes, again, at your own risk.
• BUT, you need to say in the general area of the beach – in other words, swim just outside the buoys/ropes, and a bit further out coming back (basically is a triangle). You cannot go way out into the lake or across the lake.
• At 10am, lifeguards come “officially” on duty, at which time you must swim inside the buoys/ropes.

Now, here’s the bad news. If people start swimming outside the general beach area, like across the lake or way out into the lake, then they’ll be forced to prohibit the free/own-risk swimming and everyone will have to swim within the beach buoys/ropes, and it will be a very, very short course.

Right now, if you enter the water at the usual place and swim down just outside the buoys (with them on your right), then turn around at the last buoy and swim straight back to the first buoy, the lap distance is about 138 yards.  This makes a bit less than 6-1/2 laps = Half mile.

So please keep towards the beach, and if you see other swimmers going out too far, try to let them know that doing that might ruin swimming for everyone, and they should stay around the buoys. There were a number of people out this morning swimming, and everyone seemed to do a good job staying fairly close.

Note: my Tuesday evening Open Water Swim Workouts classes will be going outside the buoys.

Water temperature was 68 degrees this morning.

---