With daylight savings now in effect, morning swims begin before dawn again. But soon the days will grow longer and the water will get warmer. Warmer water means longer swims. In a way, daylight savings was like a switch. There’s no hiding. My goal of swimming from Catalina to Long Beach is now in full view.
6 months to go
As with my Cardiff to Cove swim in 2020 during the first year of the pandemic, I’m working on a spreadsheet given to me by Diane Corbin to track my training progress. I’m now figuring out what needs to happen to make my swim successful. Dan Simonelli once again, will help me design a training schedule just as he did for my Cardiff to Cove swim.
The Team
Gracie van der Byl, an American married to a South African is the record holder for the Catalina Crossing to the mainland (men or woman). She happens to coach Masters swimming at the Boys and Girls Club in Solana Beach on Monday’s during the lunch hour. On a challenge I began regular Masters swimming with Gracie as coach. A few months ago, I told her about my goal. Out of the blue she offered to help me and to accompany me in her family yacht. I am excited about this new adventure and all its uncertainties!
Mike Redman says he’s excited about the Catalina swim too. Mike accompanied me on his kayak all the way on my Cardiff to Cove 13-mile swim. That adventure that took me 9 hours. I will need to find another kayaker to give Mike a break because I anticipate the Catalina crossing may take about 12-14 hours to complete.
Motivation
With each of my two previous swim challenges, I had swim caps with a specially designed logo produced. For this challenge, I decided to have 150 swim caps made with my design. It’s a mermaid playing a ukulele sing to two garibaldi’s and a bat ray. In the mermaid’s tail, I printed five things that are inspiring, helping, motivating and propelling me to accomplish my goal. They are:
LJCSC La Jolla Cove Swim Club
CCSF Catalina Crossing Swim Federation
NCOS North County Ocean Swim group
THEO Theodore Yach
NPF National Psoriasis Foundation
My next five blogs will feature each of these in detail.
Support my Swim
If you would like a swim cap for yourself or someone you know who could use it, please support my Catalina swim and donate to my DIY event. If you donate, I will send you a swim cap (while supplies last). Please click on the following link to donate: https://npf.donordrive.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=donorDrive.personalCampaign&participantID=29796
The NPF is a 501(c) 3 organization. Its big mission is to find a cure for autoimmune diseases such as Psoriatic Arthritis (PsA) and Psoriasis (PsO).
I have paid for the swim caps, so 100% of the proceeds from any donations go directly to the National Psoriasis Foundation.
There is a lot going into my Catalina Swim which will be at the end of September 2022.
I wish everyone good health.
See you in the ocean.