Juanita Beach

Today at 10:30, Manuel and I arrived at Juanita Beach to check out the old pilings I took pictures of yesterday.
we entered the water at the farthest extent of the looping boardwalk and headed east toward that old road.
It doesn't look that far, but it felt like quite the swim. now that i carry my camera around, i only really have the use of my legs and feet. occasionally when i feel like i really need to move, i'll use my left arm as well, but that tends to send me in a direction that's not very straight.

so Manuel and I swam through a thick jungle of weeds and arrived at the pilings.
the weeds dissipated in some areas, but were really a constant factor throughout the whole dive.
The bottom was actually a very fine silt. i stuck my hand, and then my arm into the lakebed hoping to find a hard bottom, but i never did.
i got up to my shoulder when i decided that i had found a good stopping point.
i'd see if i could pull anything up, and sometimes i would find something, but on more than one occasion, it was just a stick.

the water was very shallow. i never really recorded the depth because for the most part i could always stand. the picture of me holding up the pipe is me standing flat-footed. the deepest it could have gotten was only about seven feet.

the temperature, was another story. when we started it was 67 degrees. the sun was barely out and trying to warm us up.
by the time we made it to the pilings, the sun had slipped behind some clouds and i immediately felt a temperature drop.
i checked my watch to see that it was now 66 degrees.
it's amazing how such little variation can be felt in water.

at the pilings there were only really weeds or algae covering the bare ground.
there was nothing to be found.
we found a plastic bag, but that's recent.

the smaller pilings to the south were easily navigable.
the weeds weren't so bad.
we found a part of the walkway that had fallen into the water. it was about a 15-foot stretch.

as for the larger pilings to the north, i had to push my way through a sea of weeds.
imagine trying to push your way through a ton of christmas trees stacked about 2 feet away from each other.
that's similar to what i had to do.
it was somewhat sharp too, but only to an annoyance and not really to do any harm.

so i made my way through that and into the lily forest.
i didn't really try to penetrate it, as manuel was yelling that it was time to go,
so i just took some shots of intertwining lily bulbs and made my way back.
it was a long swim back.

i took a few shots along the way, but tried to stay on course.
using the left arm for propulsion helped a bit, but just meant that i had to keep checking my bearings.

all in all, it wasn't the worst dive, but definitely no where near the top.
maybe next summer we can explore further, as we're running out of places to explore along the lake as far as piers go.

i think all we have left to look forward to is renton.
maybe we can get wetsuits and continue on with the tradition of the weekly snork.