Living with the Kiwis: Harbor Crossing Results!

I survived the swim across the Auckland Harbor and also managed to stay awake the entire day after waking up at 5:30am for it! Sunday morning at 7:05am the first wave of speedy swimmers (wearing red caps) began their swim, then 1 min after the next wave (wearing pink caps), 1 min after the next wave (wearing yellow caps), and finally 1 min after the final wave, my wave (wearing white caps). I entered myself with a seed time of 1.5hr-1.75hr (the cutoff) because I really didn't expect to do much better than that, seeing as I haven't swam really in 3 years or done any training for the event. It was kind of a gross morning, rainy and windy and not so warm out. The water was pretty choppy once entering the open harbor coming out of the bay from behind the marina, but it was pretty cool to be able to see the other side waaaaayyyy across the water, I'm glad I can say I've swam across now! My official time, just posted online today was 1hr 11min and 34sec. The timing chip didn't stop timing you though until you'd climbed up the ladder, gone up a ramp, then went through the inflatable finish line once up on the platform. The average time for people who completed it before the cutoff was 1hr 4min and 54sec. Only 984 people finished the race out of 1145 people who entered. I don't think all swam too slowly, I'm sure some people just decided on the day not to swim it, either not happy wiht the weather or didn't feel ready or something. Hopefully the photos will be up soon! In the mean time, here's some photos of what the wetsuit did to my neck...super chaffing and super painful! This was right after the swim, but today it's even worse cause it's drying out and getting tighter!

Sunday afternoon I went to check out the Devonport Christmas market with some of the girls. There were some craft stalls and some yummy gourmet cupcakes. Right outside there was a sign reading "Does this turtle belong to you?" and an arrow pointing down to a lost property box with some water and rocks and HUGE painted turtle in it! I wanted to claim him! He looked just like a grown up Terrance! Who loses a turtle anyway?? After exploring the market we decided to go up to the top of Mt. Victoria in Devonport just to check out the view since it had turned out to be a pretty nice day, just SUPER windy up there!