Mathews Beach

In an effort to save my feet, I decided to try a different lake entry point. Off to Mathews beach, just up the road from my usual entry of Magnuson Park. Mathews has a few advantages over Magnuson. It has a sand beach entry. The swim area is smaller, the parking lot is smaller. The whole park is smaller. It has a few disadvantages too. It does not have showers, and it has a horrid milfoil problem.

Standing on the beach, looking at the flat water, I wanted to just swim across to O.D. Denny park- following the route of the Park to Park swim. But without a boat escort (or a way home for that matter) I decided parallel to shore was a better option.

I swam out into deep enough water, and looked for a turn-around point on shore. I was swimming south this time (I usually go North out of Magnuson). The point I picked, I estimated to be a quarter mile away. When I came home and mapped it on mapmyrun, it clocked the round trip swim at .49 miles!! How's that for accuracy.

There was a blue heron on a buoy for most of the swim. I got fairly close to it, and it didn't seem to mind. It's quite a beautiful bird-- with a very long beak and a neck that it can stretch so it looks like a crane or retract so it looks like a duck (with a pointed beak). Impressive.

One more draw-back of Matthews, is that where I swam was on a concave shoreline, so swimming straight, I got further and further from the shore. At Magnasun it's much easier to stay parallel to shore. And, my half mile swim took me almost to the NOAA station. I think they don't like folks too close to their equipment, so there may be a limit to the distances I can go, from this beach, in this direction. I'll have to swim North next time. Or, across the cove to Magnuson beach. Perhaps I can do a point-to-point swim from one park to the next.

Water Temp: 67 Air Temp: 72 Time in water: 25 min