I swam every single day of February and most of March (through the 23rd) at the Albany Bulb. Fifty-two days definitely marks my longest streak of swimming every day in one place. When I was swimming and blogging every day, I made an effort to mix things up just so that I’d have something to write about and last year I wasn’t swimming every day. The consistency felt good and the sameness of place highlighted how dramatically different the bay can be from one day to the next.

Full moons, rainbows, storms, sunrises, blue skies, rain, wind, sunshine, fog, and calm: We had it all in these fifty-two days.

Most of the time the water was notably warm, ranging from 51 at the coldest (and just for two days) to 62 (that was an afternoon during low tide, but there were a couple of legitimately 60 days). The average temperature for February was 54.38 and for those first 23 days in March, it was 56.5. Last year, we had temperatures in the high 40s in March, so it feels a bit wrong for the San Francisco Bay to be so warm at this time of year. As for my temperature blanket, the relatively warmer waters brought me lots of greens and blues.

And speaking of my blanket, I ended up unraveling and starting over in mid-February. Once I caught up from my Canada trip, I could see that at the rate I was going, the blanket was going to be giant. So, I switched from a 5.5 to a 4.5 mm crochet hook and the difference in size was dramatic.

I also switched from a single crochet stitch to a moss stitch (just because I wanted to–I don’t think it made a difference to the size) and changed up some of the colors I wasn’t thrilled about (my cold Victoria swims were dark purple in the original and lilac in the newer version).