Saturday, August 14, 2010

DAY 15 COMPLETE

It was a long time waiting, but we finally got back in the water and moved another 6.5 kilometers.

For Saturday, August 14, 2010, The Jeju Big Swim team started out of Sinheung-ri at 8:45 a.m., and landed in Namwon Harbor at 1 p.m., pacing at more than 1.5 kmph. This was Day 15 overall, and the 10th of swimming/kayaking.

The water was cold, the air provided low visibility, stormy skies were spotted throughout to the north, choppy waves appeared everywhere, whitewater ran all too often at any sign of rocks below, and garbage patches popped up unexpectedly.

One last thing: The Marine Police did not like us today, according to one of our translators.

Notable passings for this stretch - but due to fog, and not being able to take a decent picture because of concentrative kayaking duties, the map could only tell me so - included Taeheung-ri and their coastal Primary School.

Since I couldn't take pictures, other people did, and I took a picture of them. Here was Korean award-winning photographer Kim Ok-sun and one of her students before launching at Sinheung-ri.


Three kilometers from the start we pulled into the harbor, I believe at Taeheung-ri, and took out the binoculars to assess the whitewater off the shore. Walls of rocks jutting perpendicular to the coast for meters and meters caused us grief, but Sherrin fought off anxiety and we moved forward.

Today marked the first day we changed tides. The first 80 kilometers from Samyang to Sinheung-ri, we took the outgoing tide, from high tide to low tide. Now, we started at low tide, taking the incoming tide.

Our gurus told us to take the incoming; Sherrin chose the outgoing; I believe we could have cut across each one respectively.

We're eyeing Sunday as a big day if the weather cooperates.

After landing at Namwon, several Koreans looked us up and down after doing double takes, and if they could have spoken English, would have said something like: "What the hell is going on here? Are these aliens?
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-Steve

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