Petaluma’s newest entry into the local aquatics world began a little backwards. Instead of forming a club and hiring a coach, the Salty Krakens began as an effort to build a team for a coach.
According to Salty Krakens club member Patricia Tweten, a group of Petaluma swimmers had been working with veteran swim coach Karen O’Brien at Club One. When the club changed, the swimmers wanted to continue working with O’Brien. “We basically formed a team around the coach,” she explained.
The club’s name is taken from the legend of the Kraken, a giant sea monster that is said to dwell off the coasts of Norway and Greenland.
As it evolved, the new club is something of a hybrid, with places for both youth and adult swimmers. Adults of all skill levels are welcome, although many are Masters Swimmers who swim for both fitness and the continued competition.
Tweten says the Salty Krakens are not designed to be a competitor with the Westside Aquaducks, Petaluma’s premier youth swim club.
“We are a different level of intensity,” she explained.
“We are somewhere between swim lessons and the Aquaducks,” amplified O’Brien.
A major attraction, particularly for the adults, is an opportunity to join other club members in open water swims, especially in the Bay.
“The Master Swimmers love it,” O’Brien said of open-water swimming. “The feeling is indescribable. There are no clocks. There is just you and the water.”
O’Brien also is interested in introducing more youngsters to the sport she has enjoyed and coached for years. “Swimming is a life-long sport,” she explained. “I want kids to be able to enjoy it and do it well.”
O’Brien has an extensive background in swimming, beginning as a youth swimmer and continuing to an outstanding college career at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, where she competed for four years and was team captain in her senior year. She also played water polo for Cal Poly for two years.
She continued swimming after college, becoming a Master Swimmer in 1986.
She began coaching with the summer league swim team in Redwood City and first coached a high school team at St. Francis High School in Mountain View.
After moving to the North Bay, she coached at Cardinal Newman/Ursuline, St. Vincent and Casa Grande. For the last seven years she coached at Club One.
The Salty Krakens are swimming, along with every other swim team (including all three local high schools), in the Petaluma Swim Center pool. As spring approaches, with the start of the high school season, the Salty Krakens are limited to just two lanes for practice.
Looking to the future, members of the new club have joined the push to keep the Petaluma Swim Center pool open year-round as it was last year. The need for a full-year pool is even greater as plans move forward on an expensive project to renovate the now-closed leaky pool at Petaluma High School.
“It is important to the community to keep the city pool open year-round,” said O’Brien. “The only way to do that is to keep swimmers in there.”
To learn more about the Salty Krakens Swim Club, visit the website at petalumasaltykrakens.org.
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