Imagine a young teenager who is comfortable in the ocean.
Then the annual Huntington Beach Pier Swim is a great introductory swim.
Not only do the athletes swim around the longest concrete pier on the West Coast of America, but they also face large surf, both going out and coming back in.
Running in from the onshore start, dolphining through the shallows, diving under the crashing waves, sprinting out past the pylons, rounding the end of the pier, railroading through the incoming swells, and body surfing into shore calls upon various skills needed by ocean swimmers.
Swim Long Beach, led by frequent winner Hank Wise, won the Gene Belshe Memorial Perpetual Trophy as the high-scoring team. Wise, an experienced surfer and former swimmer at Stanford University known as Dolphin Boy, said, "A lucky wave coming into shore is what a dolphin boy dreams about."
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