Last year's sandy beach off the Point in Chicago is now gone, all pebbles, rocks, and old slabs uncovered where 4-6 inches of sand was ripped out by lake currents. But Ohio Street Beach now has a soft, sandy nearshore treadway where last year it was pebbly and hard on the feet.
Pensacola, Fla., swim from May 25: must have had nice underwater views! Did anybody swim it and see anything?
Looking forward to the Chesapeake Bay swimmers' trip reports from next weekend!
:fish2:
Regards, VB
Hello all,
Being able to see all the way down to the bottom is probably the most fascinating experience to me. Besides open water swimming I am an apnea diver (=trying to stay under water without a breathing device as long as possible). Neither among OW-swimmers nor among apnea divers it is easy to find a lot of people who consciously enjoy looking down as deep as they can.
I am not exaggerating: In a few isolated places, such as on the Maldives, in Greece, in the Red Sea or in Croatia I was able to see beyond a depth of 100ft/ 30mt. Admittedly, in order to see this, I was snorkelling with a diving mask instead of swimming with a pair of goggles.
I used to take a 2-lb-piece of weight made out of lead, wrapped a white plastic bag around it (to reflect the light) and tied it to a calibrated line. Sometimes, after lowering the weight down to the bottom as far as 100ft/30mt, I still had eye contact to the weight.
You can make the same experiment with a rock or with a bottle that is filled up with sand. Just make sure that You place some markers (or tie some knots) on the rope in regular intervals, so You can always measure the depth.
In some places the sea-water was so clear that I could still see my watch, after I dropped it, resting on the sandy bottom, at a depth of 60-70ft (approx. 20mt). It was such a fun dive to pick it up again!
But even when I swim with my goggles in Croatia (when they are not fogged :)) I may be able to see a sandy bottom 40-50 feet below me.
enjoy you open water swims to the max
Gerald
"In some places the sea-water was so clear that I could still see my watch, after I dropped it, resting on the sandy bottom, at a depth of 60-70ft (approx. 20mt). It was such a fun dive to pick it up again!"
Wow,......I enjoy staying between the water and the atmosphere. But I have always figured that if I were to make journeys to the depths,..the limit would be the distance I can swim underwater and parallel to the surface.
The Ocean is grand,..but has ( as someone here so aptly said) no conscience.
Although not in the Ocean we watched TV direct from the Vancouver Aquarium for a couple of hours and watched this happening. It brought tears to my eyes. www.youtube.com/watch
Today the Chicago lap of Swim Across America was cancelled pursuant to bad weather. I had forgotten all about it so showed up at the meet site intending to do a regular morning swim, and did it. The waves got a bit higher, making everything interesting. I saw the patch of kelp/whatever where the catfish hang out nearshore and play.
VB
Last year, in my first OW group workout of the season, I was in a part of Lake Erie that was 5-6 feet deep and saw some plants (huge clumps of algae, I'm guessing) and some tiny brown-colored fish (maybe minnows?).
I'd never seen the bottom before, so I found it fascinating and extremely distracting. After two collisions with other swimmers, I figured out how to watch out for other swimmers while stealing glances at the fish.
Found this interesting thread! Has anyone found treasures at the bottom of the sea? Like around the Titanic? :rolleyes: Or perhaps something from a battle in a distant past?
Do sea animals have hearing?
swam in santa cruz yesterday. it was my first time swimming through kelp! what was fascinating to me was the fact that the water was clear, but it was impossible to tell how deep it was until i came upon these majestic stalks disappearing into the depths. beautiful and surreal, but no, i couldn't see the bottom.
i've got to figure out a way to move out here.
anyone need a house boy.
Ron those are leopard sharks! Tigers are scarier and not around here!
Try swimming over the canyon (towards B and beyond) on a clear day like today & watch the bottom drop out from under you, it makes for some weird vertigo!
Off of Andros in the Bahamas is a canyon called TOTO for Toungue of The Ocean. When I swam over the edge of the several thousand foot canyon my imagination conjured up a feeling of danger even though I was swimming
on the surface just the same as a few seconds ago over bright shallow bottom.
Pensacola, Fla., swim from May 25: must have had nice underwater views! Did anybody swim it and see anything?
I had originally planned on doing that swim, but had to cancel due to a family commitment here in Ohio. I will do it next year when they add the first double-crossing of the bay for a 10K swim.
Having lived there for a number of years through high school and about 8 years after college, I've swum in many places in the area. This swim is across the large bay along a bridge. The water visibility in this body of water is more like a lake -- about 5 feet -- so there won't be much to see. Swimming out in the gulf is a different story, but then I always had mixed emotions about the visibility I had swimming there. Ignorance is bliss.
