While Bill was beginning his successful Avalon Benefit 50 run over on Catalina (more on that later), Oscar and I hosted a distinguished guest on our Corona del Mar swim yesterday. Wyatt Song, who swam the English Channel in 2012, joined us for the morning. Wyatt is from Sydney, Australia and got in touch with us through Lynne Cox. He is braver than us and went without a wetsuit. The water was in the 59 degree range. We did our usual swim down to and through Oscar's Arch. There was a little more kelp than usual. Or maybe I just plotted a poor route since we were swimming directly into a very bright sun making sighting a bit of a challenge. At the end of the swim I spotted a thornback or thornback guitarfish (Platyrhinoidis triseriata), which is closely related to rays, but I gather is not a stingray. It has rows of spines, but does not have a venomous stinger. I also spotted, what I thought was a halibut. It turns out that not every flatfish is a halibut though, so after emailing some people that maintain websites with photos of fish, I now think it is a spotted turbot (Pleuronichthys ritteri).
Anyway, great swim. I especially loved the brown pelican that was perched Simba-like on the top of Oscar's Arch.
-Juice
No comments:
Post a Comment