First Open Water Swim… Wasn’t Pretty

I did my first ocean swim today, The first tri I am planning on doing is on July 27^th in Newport Beach and the wife was going to go to the beach to get some sun.   So I thought I would blow off the pool swim I had planned and go do an open water swim.  Before I say what happened, I am an advanced open water scuba diver, grew up surfing all over including the north shore of Hawaii, in college I would do some buoy swims (in full mask and fins, swimming side stroke) just for fun.  So the ocean has never been a problem for me.  But on that note I have never done any competitive swimming.  All the swimming workouts I ever did were side stroke.  So back in April when I got this great idea to start doing TRIs I started to go to the pool and swim.  I could not swim 100m freestyle without gasping for air.  I read a lot watched a lot of videos on u-tube and then met up with a friend who is a high school swim coach.  I can now swim 1000m sets and will do up to a 3000m work out (still slow but I am getting there).  So I thought I had this swim thing down and went down to the beach, Salt Creek Beach for the locals, and thought I would do a 20-30 min easy swim.  I use to surf all summer without a wet suit, so I would not need it today, so there I was with trunks and goggles ready to go.  I started and got about ¾ of the way to my first buoy and was finally starting to get a rhythm when I got a big mouthful of sea water, threw up and had to turn around.  I got back on shore with a grand total of a 5 min swim.  Needles to say I was humbled quite a bit.  I am going to give it a try again on tue this time with my wetsuit and a better attitude. 

Anyone else done something like this?