Christmas sandwich swims

I'm calling the open water swims I did in North Carolina over the week of Christmas sandwich swims since I got to swim on Christmas Eve and the day after Christmas. The Christmas Eve swim was at Jordan Lake (supposedly too cold for swimming...hahaha not true.) It was a bit on the windy side but 6 to 12-inch chop isn't so bad. The bonus side of this location was it was only half an hour from my mom's house. I see a great deal more open water swimming here in the future, especially since the pool hours suck and it's about the same cost in gas to drive to the lake as it is to pay for entry into the stupidly nice indoor 50-meter pool near her house. Here's the photo dump from that swim:

Yesterday I got to swim in the Atlantic ocean for the first time since I was a teenager. That's almost 20 years. And it made me feel really old. However, I was not cold. The air was around 72 and the water was definitely 60 or a little bit above, I could have stayed in four hours. The only thing stopping me was a rookie mistake. I did not put my goggles between two layers of swim caps. I'm a terrible litterbug and there is a pair of my goggles somewhere in the Atlantic ocean. I must make amends by doing a massive beach cleanup sometime soon. Ideally, I would have done that yesterday but my mom was in a hurry to get home. Apparently, while I was swimming there were dolphins around me! But because I lost my goggles I wasn't able to see them. My eyes were red and puffy after half an hour but I made myself stay and just 15 minutes longer. The water was so nice and warm sparkling in the sunshine. It was a totally novel experience swimming in a warm ocean in December. I am really proud of myself that I managed to swim in the ocean for 45 minutes without goggles. I had a great time chatting with the surfers while avoiding them in the lineup. Occasionally, I had to swim rather far out from the lineup to stay out of the way. Later, when I spoke to my mom about this she confessed that she was really scared each time, she thought for certain I was being dragged out by a rip current to certain death. My mom's not at all dramatic. It was also the slowest mile I've ever swam in my entire life 45 minutes to swim a mile! So effing slow. It doesn't help that every time I swam past the surfers they felt the need to flag me down to talk, 'are you okay?'  One fella asked if I was from Alaska when I said no I'm from Oregon, he rolled his eyes indicating that explained it even more. Okay here again massive photo dump from yesterday:

When we were just hanging out around the house I also worked on customizing a Yeti hat! There are a lot of people who've earned one so far this year I just don't know who this hat will go to. (I only added the horns the mouth and modified the eyes, I cannot take credit for the sewing of the magnificent hat itself.)