Open water swimming is my personal passion as a triathlete, but is its own beast.
I know you know this, but for anyone reading along: Open water can be an absolute nightmare, even when it looks safe, and even when the distance is short.
I used to be on the swim team. I could swim a mile, and I could swim 25 meters on about 2 breaths of air. And then one day, I attempted to cross maybe 50 meters of open water with small waves (4-5 inches, max), on a very windy day. I wound up repeatedly inhaling salt water when the wind broke the wavecaps into spray. I’m not entirely sure I would have survived what should have been a trivial swim, at least not without doing it in several long, underwater stretches. Happily, I had planned ahead and I was swimming within easy reach of a rowboat.
I have also done whitewater kayaking, with a good lifevest and a helmet, plus a wetsuit until the water is comfortably warm. (One classic kayaker rule of thumb is to always wear a wetsuit if the air temperature plus the water temperature is less than 120F.) One of the things that really viscerally surprised me is cold shock. I knew all about hypothermia. But the first time that I hit cold May water in a wetsuit and suddenly lost 50% of my swimming ability within 20 seconds was still a surprise.
I know you know this, but for anyone reading along: Open water can be an absolute nightmare, even when it looks safe, and even when the distance is short.
I used to be on the swim team. I could swim a mile, and I could swim 25 meters on about 2 breaths of air. And then one day, I attempted to cross maybe 50 meters of open water with small waves (4-5 inches, max), on a very windy day. I wound up repeatedly inhaling salt water when the wind broke the wavecaps into spray. I’m not entirely sure I would have survived what should have been a trivial swim, at least not without doing it in several long, underwater stretches. Happily, I had planned ahead and I was swimming within easy reach of a rowboat.
I have also done whitewater kayaking, with a good lifevest and a helmet, plus a wetsuit until the water is comfortably warm. (One classic kayaker rule of thumb is to always wear a wetsuit if the air temperature plus the water temperature is less than 120F.) One of the things that really viscerally surprised me is cold shock. I knew all about hypothermia. But the first time that I hit cold May water in a wetsuit and suddenly lost 50% of my swimming ability within 20 seconds was still a surprise.