Swimming Begins

A very busy day.

We started out in the morning with a short evaluation swim, just a few hundred meters, so that our guides could do a first-over look at each person's swimming. All of us had been pre-divided into pace groups (slow, medium, fast) based on information that we'd each provided when we signed up for the trip. I was assigned to the slow group (orange caps) and was a bit disappointed, but I came into this saying "It's not a race, it's an adventure.".

After a short break to get our stuff together, we boarded the boat which would take us to the start point for our first swim. The swim logistics were pretty simple: drop off the slow group (orange group), motor a distance farther away from the finish point to drop off the middle speed group (yellow caps), then further still for the fast group (pink caps). The idea was that slow groups would be caught by faster groups and everyone would finish at about the same time.

During the swim it was pretty clear that I was mis-assigned as I would get ahead of most of the swimmers then circle back to re-join the pack. This swim was a lovely coastal swim, paralleling the shore of one of the many Dalmatian islands until our skipper {Cap'n Jack, not his name) thought we should get back on board. Pink caps caught yellow caps who caught orange caps then it was time to gt on the boat.

As soon as I came aboard, Anna (one of our guides) informed me that I was moving up. Later I got the choice of yellow or pink. No pink for me; too much work!

I soon discovered that this was the hardest part as it's been windy so I quickly chilled down and started to shiver. There were hot drinks on board so I could sort of re-warm from the inside out. It's amazing what such close quarters do to modesty as people stripped down and changed out of their wet swim togs. I'll leave those images to your imagination! Suffice it so say that with 2/3 of the group women, there were lots of flashes of colorful underwear (and I thought that only happened on Survivor).

Swimming video

Highlight video