I am visiting San Francisco, from Boston, for 10 days and want to keep up my swimming while visiting friends, any recommendations of places to swim. I am staying in West Portal area.
Thanks
Seamus
The main teams in SF with regular, organized workouts that you might drop in on are Fog City, Tsunami, and USF. USF swims in a very nice pool. Fog City swims in an OK but not fancy pool in a high school. Tsunami uses a few pools but I have never been to any of them.
The Dolphin Club and South End Club are Bay swimming clubs only.
The Embarcadero YMCA has a very small group (if it still has one at all) and only two lanes, and it's kind of warm there.
I don't know about on-your-own lap swimming, although the pool at 19th Avenue & Wawona reopened recently and this article says it's lovely.
I'd agree that Fog City and USF are the best bets. I think USF has 4 practices a day. I don't know what the day rate is, though. I think it's $15, so that can get pricey. The problem with both of these programs is that they are on the western end of SF and quite a hike from downtown (where most of the hotels are located).
I know a guy who swims at the Embarcadero Y so they definitely still have a group there. I think they are mostly open water swimmers and surfers trying to stay in shape...
If you're up in Marin, you should drop by Tamalpais Aquatic Masters (http://www.tammasters.org/)
A bit south of SF Proper is Mountain View, home of Mountain View Masters. The club was quite hospitible during worlds at stanford in 2006. Coach Chris Campbell is a pretty cool dude too.
While in the Bay Area this fall, I swam at Walnut Creek and Stanford. If you can swing it, these two are a must. They couldn't have been nicer... many thanks to those two clubs.
Also, swimming in the bay at either the Dolphin Club or South End Rowing Club is a fun experience.
