Swimming with Chicas from Smith!!

Hit words/phrases/thoughts of the weekend:

Cold, "Black and Yellow, Black and Yellow," Cold, microwaving meat, COLD, need to get fat, cold, Smith, cold, "it's all for practice/the experience!!...right?", cold, waves, cold, gossip, Cold, FOOD!!, COLD, parking, freezing, MIT, cold,"Yeww, HAIR!!..oh wait it's just seaweed," COLD!!, wet, sticky, Anna: "I keep thinking about hitting a dead hand".... O.o ....Us: "ANNA!! Why did you have to say that!!"

If you didn't get it from my hit words/phrases/thoughts list above: it was really COLD this weekend!! Not only was the water 61 degrees on Saturday at Lynn Beach and mid-60s on Sunday at Revere Beach, the weather was really crappy. On Saturday, it was around mid-60s, cloudy, and rainy. Sunday was low 70s and still cloudy. What is it today? Sunny and high-70s. Just our luck...Oh well, it's all for practice right? Since we don't know what conditions we will be swimming in, it was good to go through these, far from ideal, conditions. For that reason, we took the cold water, rainy weather, 7-8 feet waves, knee-nigh red algae shores, and the asperity of the ocean salt with (uhh vacillating) alacrity.

Anyways, enough of my complaining, here are some details of this awesome weekend...

Saturday:

"Black and Yellow, Black and Yellow"

I received a call from Emma and Mackenzie saying they were at MacGregor dorm (where I am staying) around 10am...I was still in bed. (Productivity fail. I had planned to get up early to bike and lift that morning. I couldn't fall asleep until 3 am though. Too excited maybe?) We got to Lynn Beach around 1pm. I can imagine that we looked quite silly when we got there. It was kind of like one of those pictures where you have to pick out the objects that didn't fit. First of all, the beach was very sparsely populated. Second, those who did decide to brave the weather wore multiple sweatshirts and/or wetsuits (if you were a surfer). Emma, Mackenzie, Anna, and I pittered down to the shoreline in our speedo one-pieces (in Anna's case: 2-piece). I don't know if people were impressed or just thought we were crazy, but we were definitely too concerned with actually getting into the water to care. The act of actually getting in the water was quite an ordeal. With every crashing wave, we inched towards the open sea, shrieking about the shockingly cold water and laughing nervously (well, maybe it was just me) at what we were about to attempt.

We swam about an hour before we

decided to get warm and defrost. It took forever to get warm and it was analogous to microwaving a piece of frozen meat. While my skin got warm, my insides were still freezing. My extremities felt this contrast the greatest; my fingers and toes tingled as my blood failed to warm them. Every time Anna opened the van door to throw out pistachio shells, I would recoil from the cold air.

After sitting in the car for an hour or so, we decided to try again. (Retrospectively, getting out made the second swim much worse) The second time we got in brought crappier weather, bigger waves, and no Anna. Although we ended up warming up faster than the first time, we didn't stay in as long. After a defining wave that crashed over us, we decided it was too dangerous to continue and struggled to shore.

I think, the Pour House half-off burger and Pinkberry frozen yogurt that night was well deserved. :D

Sunday:

Revere Beach was definitely better than Lynn beach in that the weather was much better and water warmer. Once again, getting in was rough but this time we shrieked about knee-high red algae. We had to wade through several feet of the slippery, sticky, weird stuff before we could find clear water. It was so GROSS!!

Revere Beach was much better for sighting. There were more buildings and five lifeguard stands, which were great to letting us know how far we swam and setting goal for when to stop. (At Lynn Beach, we ended up sighting surfers and telephone poles. The conversations went something like this: "Let's swim to that surfer." "The one with the paddle?" "No, the furthest one after the one with the paddle." or "Let's swim to the 12th telephone pole." "The one with the person next to it?" "Which one? All people are moving!")

We didn't end up swimming that much at Revere. We got out after an hour and decided not to go back in. This was partially because we had been tired from staying up late the night before and partially because we dreaded getting wet, cold, and covered in algae again.

On the whole though, this was a very successful weekend! Looking forward to more swimming fun!! :D