Just swam Alcatraz... on study tour of US health care reform...

... for the first time ... perfect conditions: hardly any breeze, glassy surface, no chop, except from the occasional passing fishing boat, water c. 17C, little current, since he tide was just on the turn. More coming...

Here's os.c (left), just in the process of escaping from Alcatraz...

There is a fellow swimmer, not sure whom, ditto escaping... there 's much pressure for the group to swim together, so the incoming tankers and bulk carriers don't have to swerve too much to get into the port...

And here we are (below) with our cobber, Gary Emich, organiser of the Alcatraz Challenge Aquathlon, taking us, with his wife, Peg, who took the pic, on a tour of some of the San Francisco area's more spectacular but inaccessible (to pedestrians) topological highlights...