The wind was howling when I woke up this morning and I anticipated a wild swim in the bay. But when Angie and I arrived at the Albany Bulb, it wasn’t quite so dramatic. Still, it was windy enough that it was painful to strip off our warm gear and scamper down to the water. As we waded in, a big seal was looking at us just a short distance from the shore, which gave us a momentary pause, but we glided in anyway. We’ve come so far from our terrified early days of wild swimming. 

It was a beautiful morning; the wind had chased all the bad air away and it was stunningly clear. These days we base our swims on time instead of destination and, after 16 minutes we figured we’d better turn around.

Usually, the way back is faster than the way out, but not today. The wind had radically picked up and it was blowing right at us. We had to work hard to get back and I swallowed gallons of salty water; but it felt good to work hard.