What a day! Most of us finally got some sunburn--we were just out for a long time! It was grey and drizzly when we woke up, not exactly setting the mood for most of us to go on a long swim. I wasn't feeling biased one way or the other. After a free day I was ready to go. Unfortunately, not doing the "optional" day left me a bit out of the loop. Well, it made for quite a series of adventures. I'll try to keep it to the swimming but, with the workshop emphasis on swimming with friends, it's hard to leave out the people aspect. What a great bunch of folks. A wide variety of abilities, ages, vocations, from different parts of the country, from other countries...but everyone interested in getting to be better swimmers, or being able to do easy distance, or wanting to get over their fear of open water.
We all did varied distances , depending on what we felt like doing. Sarah and I decided to stick with the 3.5 mile swim. It was sunny, gorgeous...aqua water, some chop...some fun fish (a little black shark of some sort, some rays, great little blue and yellow fish...at the end of the afternoon workshop, I saw some little needle nose critter...it was really pretty! Maybe five inches long. Maybe I can find out what it was.
We swam, our particular group, from Little Maho, to Big Maho, to Cinnamon Bay, to Trunk Bay...and then back to Cinnamon. That's when the fun began as far as getting back to Little Maho. The details hadn't exactly been worked out clearly, so many adventures followed that are entertaining in retrospect. I ended up with Sarah lending me money to buy flip flops because Keith had my Keens because he stopped at Trunk, but the taxi times were wrong so we didn't hook up at Cinnamon, so we had to take another taxi but only had $14 left among us (as I'd just bought the sandals because I couldn't climb the Goat Path or walk the road barefoot)--but it cost $16 for four, but Sarah talked the cabbie into taking four people for $14--and we get to Big Maho and realize that Andrew can't walk the Goat Trail because he doesn't have shoes either, so I take Sarah's shoes (which I could have borrowed, we now figure) and she and Andrew swim back to Little Maho while I climb that dang trail in flip flops which is not fun. But we all meet up at the snack shack and I treat Andrew and Sarah to lunch because, by gosh, we've just made it through an adventure...never mind the people taking taxis who got stuck behind a truck that had some problem on the hill and people were switching to cabs on either side of the truck...oh, never mind. By the time we ate it was a half hour before we had to be back down the Goat Trail for our final taping and technique work.
The swim, though, was the best distance swim I've ever done. Finally, I wasn't wishing for it to be over. I was present, I was paying attention, I was learning, I was observing, and I was sharing the experience with friends. I think we surprised the heck out of some beach goers, wondering who the heck we were, this mass of swimmers coming in. We did some tight pod swimming and finally got the gist of it. It was a great leap for a lot of us.
After our final session we had all of a half hour to get dressed and back to the restaurant to review the videos. While I'm happy with my stroke I am always looking ahead and dissatisfied. But I can see I need 2 beat kick work and some time getting my hands lower to the water again. I'm putting out
unnecessary effort for most circumstances. So it's time to slow down and get back into getting better. The faster will follow. It has already. That's it for today. I'm spent! Our last swim is in the AM and some folks have gone already. It's been a grand week.
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