It's still Sunday morning.
And, we haven't seen anyone swimming yet, right?
So, it's still before 7 am.
Yes, all of those people you have seen so far got up way before now, so they could be here at the Fort to either swim, or watch someone swim.
Hard to believe.
It is such a weird experience for me too. Normally, when I am camping at the Fort, I head down to the Settlement area for a look around at 7-ish. If you can find my Thanksgiving 2008 trip report, you will see that I wandered around this area on Thanksgiving morning, and barely saw one other person. But today, the sun isn't even up, and there are thousands of people wandering around.
Anyhow, here I am heading back out onto the dock:
In case you haven't picked up on it already, the swim course begins on one side of the dock, toward the Settlement Trading Post, and then heads straight out into the lake, and then finishes on the other side of the dock, over by the dock used for the fishing excursion boats.
Here, you can see the swim start area, and folks getting their places to watch the beginning of the triathlon:
There are all kinds of lifeguards in boats and on paddle-boards out in the lake:
The sky is getting lighter in the east:
Here comes the sun!!
(those specks you see in the middle of the above photos are ducks flying across the lake- they must have been as amazed as me to see all of these people here so early in the morning when they normally would have the lake to themselves at this time of day)
More sunrise photos:
As I stood there on the dock, the announcer introduced a woman who had won the Hawaii Ironman competition, and she gave the competitors a pep talk. Then someone was going to sing the National Anthem, and the race was about to start.
At this point it occurred to me that after the race started, I might be prohibited from going back to my cabin, as I would have to cross the bike course, and they had it all fenced off and manned by volunteers.
So, I headed back to my cabin, as I didn't want to be trapped out here.
Here are even more folks showing up for the race:
I was able to make it back to the cabin without a problem.
From there, I heard the national anthem sung, and starting gun shot, and I re-filled my coffee mug, and headed back to the beach to see what it looks like when two thousand people swim in Bay Lake.
TCD