Day 32: Crystal Springs

Another beautiful day in paradise. Here's the Crystal Springs shoreline as I walk north from where Crystal Springs Rd is along the shore, to my entry point. Ah. The weather and water are warming up for the summer, the wind is dead calm, and the beach is gorgeous with big trees right down to the waterline. Does the water look a bit cloudy to you?

Yes, unfortunately there's a new plankton bloom in town. Murky Murk returns (right). The visibility is low and I have to stay in shallow water if I want to see the bottom, mostly 5 feet or less.

It's a nice swim, but not a lot of view of the bottom and underwater photos just don't show much besides murk.


air temp: 66F
water temp: 50F
May 22, 2009, 4pm, sunny
wind from N, 0-3 mph
medium tide, rising
visibility 3-8 feet
today's distance: 1.21 mile
total so far: 36.55 miles

notables:
schools of small fish
algae and plankton

I walk north from Crystal Springs Rd towards the Gazzam Park shoreline. I can see that the water is cloudier than my last swim, but I never know how bad visibility will be until I actually get underwater. Sometimes the water looks fairly clear from above and turns out to be cloudy, and once in a while the surface view looks worse than the underwater view.

Today, the underwater view is actually worse than I expected, even though the surface view looked murky. Oh well, I can still see well enough to make the swim worthwhile.

Here's an interesting photo I took (left), I put the camera on the bottom pointed straight up in 6 feet of water. My head is just visible in the corner, a few bits of algae are visible, and the surface isn't really visible, it's just a glow.

The shoreline has some concrete walls, they look like erosion control structures since they run down from the shore into the deeper intertidal area (right). They've done what such structures do, accumulate sand and gravel on the upcurrent side and starve the downcurrent side. Catching gravel at the expense of the beach downcurrent. There are about a dozen or more, so somebody spent some money trying to save the beach (or the houses on shore). It creates a scalloped effect to the beach.

Once again, my close view of the bottom shows me another fun barnacle rock (left). Does that water look a little green to you? The color is completely unaltered, it's green.

Soon I'll come around White Point and see my finish at Ft. Ward State Park, maybe two more swims.