05/30/2009 - Fairhope

1) Getting to see the sunrise over the Fairhope Yacht Club required an early start in order to be at the Grandman Trialthon on time.

2) Triathlon participates are split up into seven waves to make it safer. If they all swam the 1/3 mile course at the same time it would be chaos.

3) Swimming in waters so shallow many racer simply bounce along the bottom instead of swimming. 

4) The Mobile Bay Canoe and Kayak Club had members stationed all along the swimming course to provide support for the swimmers. The Grandman Trialthon benefits Mobile Baykeeper, The Gulf Coast Area Triathletes, The Baldwin County Trailblazers, and Camp Rap-A-Hope.

5) The last of the swimmers make their way to the transition area where they hop on their bicycle for a 16 mile ride and then conclude with a 5k run.

6) After the all the swimmers were on land I headed over to Fly Creek. A Fly Creek group is suing over upstream construction activity that was polluting the waters. Ironically, this Fly Creek resident is polluting the air around the creek they want to protect.

7) Colorful sailboats on protected waters make for nice reflections.

8) The new Fairhope Yacht Club building can be seen in the background. The old building was destroyed by a hurricane.