Just participated in the Open Water Festival held at Miromar Lakes in Ft. Myers, Florida. I was mainly attending because my son was part of a group from Houston that travelled down there to swim in some age-group events. But they also had a few events suitable for Masters swimmers, one being the Fran Crippen Sunset Mile on Saturday evening (which I participated in with perhaps a dozen other "Masters" swimmers) and a 5K swim on Sunday morning. They also had a Team Pursuit competition on Saturday morning with options for men only teams, women only teams, and mixed teams of up to 5 people with the third person on the team being the scoring time. If it was a mixed team, at least one of those first 3 needed to be of the opposite sex or it would go to the 4th, and so on.

It's a beautiful venue. White sand, palm trees, indoor restroom facilities. Plenty of hotels and restaurants nearby, and the Ft. Myers airport is only about 15 minutes away. It's also about a 2 hour drive south from Tampa. On Saturday afternoon, they also had an open water clinic put on by Maddie Crippen and Haley Anderson.

This event has been growing over the last several years, and it would be great to see an even larger master's swimming presence there. Also, if your kids are involved in swimming, perhaps talk to their LSC leadership about sponsoring a team to attend this event next year. In addition to our team from the greater Houston area and a team from the South Texas/San Antonio Area, there were teams there from all over Florida as well as teams from Maryland, Indiana, and Nevada.

https://www.teamunify.com/Home.jsp?team=flowf

There was also a group there from Open Water Planet promoting a series of swims they've put together called the Triton Series.

http://www.openwaterplanet.com/