Sometimes, an open water swimmer walks to the shoreline thinking, “Do I swim to the right or do I swim to the left…or just straight out?”

Depending on the currents, tides, sun position, marine traffic, rocks, piers, harbors, surfers, kite surfers, windsurfers or other factors, they will head off either hugging the coast or outside the surf line, or perhaps just heading straight out to some to-be-determined point.

But they usually all come back smiling like Alexander Studzinski in Copacabana Beach.

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