Outdoor Swimming Society

This past winter, I discovered the Outdoor Swimming Society’s wonderful website, I knew it was going to be challenging to decide which I enjoyed more: peursuing their website or actually swimming outside. This UK-based organization makes swimming outside—especially in very cold water lakes, rivers, pools, seas, and bays—look very very appealing. All the wool-hatted swimmers look like they are having so much fun in that freezing air and chilly water! (Sometimes I wonder if it’s actually August and they are faking it!)

The Outdoor Swimming Society website is not only full of inviting photographs of happy swimmers in outdoor swimming spots (mostly in the UK) but also excellent information on issues such as swim safety, cold-water acclimatization, swim events, some OSS gear (see my “imported” silicon cap in the photo) and links to many award-winning or award-worthy films on outdoor swimming. If you’ve read Roger Deakin’s Waterlog: A Swimmer’s Journey Through Britain, you might be surprised to discover in Deakin’s wake dozens of similarly wonderful, personal, quirky, enticing, books about “wild swimming.” There are links and reviews of them on the OSS site.

And movies! You can stream (often for free) film( mostly documentary, often short) about wild swimmers and wild swimming. Click here to watch. A few of my favorites are Johanna Ice Swimmer, My Big White Thighs & Me, and The Litter Mermaid. One indie offering, A Film Called Blacks Can’t Swim by British Rapper Frank “Ed Accura” Awuah, isn’t in wide release but check out the preview and get your local indie movie house to request a screening. A socially relevant and important film to help ensure everyone in our community has the opportunity to enjoy and feel safe swimming.

The Outdoor Swimming Society—the organization and the website—appeals to a wide range of outdoor swimmers: wild-water swimmers, outdoor pool and lido swimmers, competitive swimmers, and anyone who love to dip or plunge or float in the gloriously liquidy part of our earth.

Get out there!

Swimming with Geese in Munn Lake

Until last Thursday, swimming in Munn Lake has been a relaxed affair This early in the season, we swimmers have been sharing the lake with just a few fishermen, a scenic drift boat or two, and the delightful soundtrack of red-winged blackbirds in the cattails. Canada geese fly over the lake and might be nesting somewhere on the shore out of sight, but they are usually not on the lake when we are. Oh, but Thursday morning was different. There were two geese in the middle of the lake when we entered the water and then they flew off and we lost track of them. We must not have been paying attention. Suddenly it seemed a single goose was on the water and moving toward us. I have never had a personal encounter with a Canada goose but I knew they have a reputation for being aggressive, strong, and defensive when protecting a nest or goslings

So I put on my swim goggles to protect my eyes. The goose continued toward us and we made the assumption that it was protecting a nest so we swam toward the opposite shore. This goose was not posturing defensively, honking, or hissing at us. It was simply swimming toward us. Closer and closer.

When it got within a few feet of us (yes as in 2 or 3 feet), my friend splashed it with water and told it to go away but to no avail. In hindsight, splashing water on waterfowl was not a brilliant defense. Likely the goose thought “Fun! My people!”

We swam harder to evade the goose, but it continued its pursuit. We decided to swim in different directions to reduce our “army of two” and lessen the goose’s perception of us as a threat, but the goose picked one of us to follow: my friend. Who decided to simply tell the goose that we were friends and we were not going to harm it or bother its nest. The goose took my friend at her word and decided to continue on the path toward friendship. We decided to put our heads down and swim crawl stroke toward the boat ramp and leave the goose in our wake. Ha!

The goose followed us and waddled up the boat ramp and into the parking lot where we had left our towels and thermos of tea. When it came within a few feet of us, it stopped and began preening.

That’s when we noticed the monofilament fishing line wrapped around its ankle. From a few feet away it didn’t seem that the line was constricted the goose’s ankle but was more of a foreign-object irritant to the goose. It began tugging at the line and, because we believe in trans-species communication, concluded that the goose was asking for our help. It was pursuing us on the lake but couldn’t show us its ankle until we were on land. With the heartbreaking images of the mother orca whale displaying her dead calf above the waters of Puget Sound last summer still fresh in our minds and hearts, we were only too willing to answer this goose’s plea for help.

We didn’t let the fact that we had no wildlife rehabilitation skills, goose wrangling experience, or pair of scissors between us hold us back. Both of us imagined we could just throw one of our towels over it to keep the goose’s wings still while we untangled the fishing line. Yes, the goose was asking us to do exactly this. This is how goose whisperers are born.

After a few towel tosses and goose stepping…we admitted that maybe we should just call the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, which manages the boat ramp and stocks the lake with fish. Perhaps they had a wildlife biologist with the necessary skills and a pair of scissors at the ready. Until then, we couldn’t do much for the goose so we decided to help future geese by picking up strands of monofilament, lures, and cigarette butts from the area around the boat ramp. There was more than there should have been given there is a monofilament disposal tube right there next to the ramp. Our good deed done, we began walking toward our car, assuming the goose would turn back to the lake. Ha!

It followed us to my car and stood buy the driver’s door. Uh oh. I had read stories about young goslings and ducklings imprinted on humans and had seen the movie “Fly Away Home,” but this was an adult goose and we had only spent about 15 minutes in its company on the lake and another 5 on land. I slowly backed the car up and drove toward the road. The goose ran alongside my car by my window. And then it fell behind the car. Phew. We had outrun it.

I looked in the rearview mirror expecting to see the goose in the distance waddling toward the lake. But no. My rear-view mirror was full of Canada goose. This crazy bird was flying behind the car right at the back windshield. What is the only thing to say in a situation like this? “Holy shit!”

The goose didn’t expect me to slow down and stop before turning out of the parking lot and onto the road. So when I slowed down, the goose flew over the top of the car and slid down the front windshield. Yes, I had a goose on my front windshield, its wings stretched across the entire windshield for a few seconds before it landed in front of the car.

Had this goose imprinted on a blue 2002 Prius? What to do?

We’d turn right (away from a major road) and into the neighborhood where we would make a series of left and right turns and elude the goose. I turned onto the road and before I knew it, the goose was flying along side my car at eye level. Soon, I feared, it would be flying into the car, nestling down in the back seat, and putting on its seatbelt. I pulled the car over to the side, made a U-turn, and hoped the goose would fly back toward the lake as we passed the entrance to the boat ramp.

The goose turned and ran along side the car (see video above). Illegal move #1: I grabbed by cell phone and tossed it at my friend. “Quick! Take a video!” The only reasonable response to this request was, “No, I’ll hold the steering wheel and you take the video.” Illegal move #2: My friend held the steering wheel and yours truly fumbled with my android camera and managed to capture the video of “our” goose. When I noticed a car coming toward us and the goose, tossed my camera onto the floor and flashed my headlights. The car slowed down and then stopped. The goose landed and stopped. This was our chance to escape.

We drove past the goose and the stopped car, but for reasons neither my friend nor I can explain, I turned back toward the boat ramp and parked the car behind the port-a-potties. Because this is what trained wildlife biologists do. They hide from wildlife so they can better observe their behavior. Tucked behind this impromptu "duck blind,” we were sure we would be soon seeing our goose waddling or flying back down to the lake. We waited and waited. And then my friend got out of the car and snuck up toward the road. No goose. The coast was clear. Phew.

We drove away from the lake again and headed home. Only to see our goose standing in the middle of the road about 500 feet ahead of us with cars stopped on both sides of the road. We figured the goose would be confused by so many cars and not be able to track mine. We lucked out this time. And headed home, hoping the goose made it back to Munn Lake safely.

Upon returning home, my friend called a few wildlife biologists and rehabilitators and described our encounter. The listened patiently. “Uh-huh.” “Uh-huh.” “Huh.” “Wow.”

The only explanation they could think of was that this particular adult goose had likely imprinted earlier on someone who had been feeding it and may have looked like one of us. Which might have made sense if were were standing in a yard tossing cracked corn at it. But all this goose saw of us was our heads sticking up out of the lake as we swam.

I'm not sure we'll ever know the real story. I have been back to the lake twice since our Close Encounter of the Goose Kind. Our goose wasn’t there nor were any of its buddies. I am hoping our goose will return so I can be sure our encounter wasn’t a dream. It was so surreal that I sometimes wonder.

When I told this story to another friend, she loaned me her copy of Bernd Heinrich’s Geese of Beaver Bog. This lovely book chronicles his time raising a Canada goose gosling named Peep when his son was 3 years old. This is a story of intentional imprinting and opens this way.

“The speed limit on the highway a mile form my home in Vermont is 45 miles and hour, and Peep was pushing it. She was winging along a foot or two behind and just to the left of the cab of my Toyota pickup truck…”

So it’s obviously a Toyota thing. Just to make sure, I’ll read past page 1 and let you know.

Books to Inspire Wild Swimmers

Before starting any new book project, I like to find out what’s already out there on my chosen topic. When I wrote A Sideways Look at Clouds, there was only one book that was at all similar to the book I had in mind to write. That book was the charming and encyclopedic Cloudspotter’s Guide: The Science, History, and Culture of Clouds, by Gavin-Pretor Pinney. With a title like that, was there anything left for me to write about? It turns out the sky’s the limit when it comes to writing about clouds, but I had to work hard (over 8 years!) to discover fresh, new territory and to approach the clouds from a different angle (hence the sidewayslook at clouds).

Last fall I decided to start a book about swimming across Washington, lake by lake, with hiking and biking and bussing in between. Years ago I had read “The Swimmer,” the 1964 short story by John Cheever and then later watched the movie version starring Burt Lancaster. The story stuck with me as it tends to do if your idea of bliss is to spend an entire summer taking a long walk across your county via your neighbor’s pools (minus the tragic life of the lead character).

My twist on “The Swimmer” was to swim in lakes, not in pools, and write a personal narrative/ natural-history/social history of the lakes I swam in. My swimming skills needed improvement I spent more time swimming laps at the YMCA pool and reading reading reading until late spring when the water warms up enough to swim without a wetsuit.

I first read Lynne Cox’s classic Swimming to Antarctica. Wrong direction! And then I read Leanne Shapton’s Swimming Studies, a beautifully written and dreamy reflection on competitive and recreational swimming, water, life, love, complete with her own artwork and photos of her vintage bathing suit collection. Right direction. And then there was Lynn Sherr’s Swim: Why We Love the Waterand Lisa Congdon’s The Joy of Swimming: A Celebration of Our Love for Getting in the Water. Also right direction. Each of these books was written by a swimmer, a woman, and combined a personal narrative with a broader story about various aspects of the swimming culture. It was a crowded field. Was there anything left for me to write about?

And then I discovered the Outdoor Swimming Society and realized that there were plenty more memoirs and guides to “wild swimming”—the ancient but now wildly popular practice of swimming in oceans, lakes, rivers, and other “wild” water. It was on the Outdoor Swimming Society’s website that I learned about Kate Rew’s Wild Swim, Jenny Landreth’s Swell: A Waterbiography, Ruth Fitzmaurice’s I Found My Tribe, Joe Minihane’s Floating: A Life Regained, and Alexandra Heminsley’s Leap In: A Woman, Some Waves and the Will to Swim.

Like the newly stirred passion for cloud watching, the epicenter of wild swimming seems to be in Britain. Why? Partly because this island is surrounded by the sea, dotted with lakes, and incised by swimmable rivers. And partly because it has a long history of recreational lake swimming. And partly because it has supported outdoor and indoor public pools since the early 19thcentury. But the recent renaissance in wild swimming I believe can be credited to one man, Roger Deakin, and his nearly-cult classic Waterlog: A Swimmer’s Journey Through Britain, which was published in 1999 and, it turns out, was inspired by John Cheever’s “The Swimmer.” 

Published in 1999, this book has lead to wave of “wild swimming” as a popular pastime and subject for a collection of natural history books you’ll want to pack with your bathing suit and towel wherever you go.

“I started to dream ever more exclusively of water. Swimming and dreaming were becoming indistinguishable. I grew convinced that following water, flowing with it, would be a way of getting under the skin of things, of learning something new. I night learn about myself, too. In water, all possibilities seemed infinitely extended. Free of the tyranny of gravity and the weight of the atmosphere. I found myself in the wide-eyed condition described by the Australian poet Les Murray when he said: ‘I am only interested in everything.’”

Most every wild-swimming book published since Waterlogeither acknowledges, quotes, and/or refers to the legacy of Waterlog. Deakin, who died in 2006, wrote a book that got under our skin—only in the best sense—and helped us move our watery selves back into the water, into our landscapes, into the flow and tide and rhythm of the natural world we have largely turned our backs on. 

So here, on the 20thanniversary of the publication of Waterlog, I humbly offer heaps of gratitude to Roger Deakin and to all those who swim and write and dream in his wide wake. On my swims at the Y and in my local lake this spring I carry some part of each of their stories with me into the accepting, giving, wonderful water.

Waterlog enchants readers with its “frog’s-eye view” of the wild waters of the British landscape. (Illustration by David Holmes from chapter one of Waterlog.

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Munn Lake Wild Swim #4

After just four early-season swims in Munn Lake, just south of Olympia, I am feeling more comfortable getting into and swimming in cold water. “Cold” is getting warmer in this lake. My first swim, on March 21, was in 52 degree F water. The water (at least in the shallows) was 60 degrees F today, though it seemed colder without the sun and with the air temperature only in the upper 50s.

My friend and I usually use the concrete slab boat ramp to enter the water, but this darling little rowboat was coming ashore and its owner was going to be using the ramp to trailer the boat. To make sure we were out of his way, we moved with a bit more alacrity that usual. Which was a good thing. It meant we didn’t dawdle on the shore. We splashed water on our faces (a trick to help reduce the shock of the cold water on the rest of your body) and were fully immersed in under five minutes.

It’s amazing what happens in those first few minutes of immersion. The anxiety about getting in (which had been building up all afternoon) dissolves in the water. You stop holding your breath. You breathe somewhat normally. And your body relaxes into the water. And then the water feels good. Or perhaps what feels good comes from the fact you got in. You did it—not exactly gracefully but at least without screaming and thrashing and stating too loudly the obvious: “It’s sooooooo cold!”

My friend and I worked our way to the middle of the lake with a combination breast stroke (head above water) and crawl. At first I could do about 10 strokes before my face hurt. But then, as my skin numbed, I could do 30. But my legs were also numb and my muscles fatigued quickly and I my breathing was becoming a bit more labored than I like. Being sensitive to your own comfort and capability in cold water is essential and I felt no need to push myself into the hypothermic zone.

Splashing water on your face helps with the entry into cold water and sipping hot tea helps with the exit. I like to keep a thermos of hot rooibos tea and few cups in the car. Warming up the core from the inside (instead of from the outside with a hot shower) is best immediately after a cold-water swim.

Once I warmed up back at home and looked at my photo of the little fishing boat, I realized how much it looked like a water boatman—the aquatic insects that have long oar-like legs that help them move across and under the water with natural grace.

Water boatman. (Photo by E. van Herk - nl:Afbeelding:Notonectaglauca.jpg, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=506562