Buoy or Girl?

TOP: No, it's not an AARP town hall meeting, it's the swimmers

2nd: At least the kayakers were young! Swimmers had nobody with more than a 1 pack...albeit we had probably drank FAR more 6-packs than the youngsters

3rd: Robb has a problem with peeing in the water, so he used the buoy

BOTTOM: Swimmer approaching the turnaround. Judging by the glare off the head, it's probably Dave :-)

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I competed in a 2.3 mile open water swim last weekend out in Lake Ontario. It was the first of what hopefully be an annual event, hosted by the Klafen family, his neighbors at Wautoma Beach, Braddock Bay Paddlesports (which dave owns), and apparently, the AARP. The swim was 2.3 miles, from shore out around a major buoy, and then back.

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The water temp was perfect, virtually no waves of substance (a FAR cry from the Canandaigua tsunami-fest a couple of weeks back!), and they had little chocolate donuts for the competitors. Which, frankly is all that's needed to get me to do anything. We started out with a gunshot, as one of the swimmers was thankfully euthanized. George Burns would have been the kid in this crew. But, fierce competitors we all were, especially Dave looking for his revenge after getting beat by Gary, Carl, and I think even Queen Elizabeth at Canandaigua. But in his defense, he did get spooked by the little fishes there.

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We were all pretty close at the turnaround buoy, when Robb (the youngest amongst us, who should still have a working bladder) decided that he needed to climb up on the buoy to take a pee...in his wetsuit. Why, we'll never know, but let's just say that it's impressive the way those suits channel fluids.

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The race back was a humdinger, with yours truly taking the win; mainly because dave had to stop to take his meds, and carl's chest hair kept getting caught up in the seaweed. They actually had to cut him loose at one point. I can't say enough good about the kayakers either, as they were vigilant, powerful, and several had treats onboard.

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All in all, kudos go out to the klafen's for orchestrating, here's to making it an annual event, and hey, if nothing else, just have us all out annually for those donuts!

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now known as the "open water michael phelps" Lumpy out