Swim bubble safety marker buoy color recommendations

FWIW I have an orange one and my buddy has a yellow one. My wife has mentioned that mine seems more visible. 'tuna I plan to do a fair amount of lake swimming during an upcoming vacation. I'll probably do two or three boat accompanied 1500m plus swims as well as regular training swims along fairly well protected shoreline swimming laps between two boat docks. Last year I tried to tried to jerry rig a buoy to increase my visibility using a life jacket. It didn't work - kept kicking it. So this year I'm purchasing a proper buoy such a the New Wave. Does anyone have any experience finding some colors better than others? The pink one is cheapest and I'm fine with the color unless others have found it not bright enough.

For better visibility, wear a brightly-colored swim cap of a different color than your buoy.

I ended up purchasing the hi-vis neon greenish-yellowish because it was on sale. Thanks for the tip on the swim cap. I had planned to use a bright yellow one I got at a race since it's close to the buoy color and use my bright red or hot pink instead.

I plan to do a fair amount of lake swimming during an upcoming vacation. I'll probably do two or three boat accompanied 1500m plus swims as well as regular training swims along fairly well protected shoreline swimming laps between two boat docks. Last year I tried to tried to jerry rig a buoy to increase my visibility using a life jacket. It didn't work - kept kicking it. So this year I'm purchasing a proper buoy such a the New Wave. Does anyone have any experience finding some colors better than others? The pink one is cheapest and I'm fine with the color unless others have found it not bright enough. I am curious how you found lakes to swim in on your vacation. I am trying to research that now as I plan to be around WV, VA, MD, PA, DE soon and would love to get in some swims. Sorry that I am asking a question of you instead of helping answer yours ; ) Thanks. Sandy

Last Tues. our Tri club was doing a lake swim. We have a half mile loop of orange buoys and swim 1-4 loops, whatever we're up for. These are triathletes. Generally the swim is their weakest event and some are nervous about being a quarter mile from shore. So one woman goes in with one of those orange swim bubbles and I start a few minutes later. I'm one of those who sights infrequently, and then lift the head just enough to spot an orange dot somewhere ahead. Trouble is, the bubble lady was going WAY off course and I'm sighting off her bubble. When I get close to her, I discover I'm at least 100 yds from the true line. I didn't learn from that because I did it again later.

Ah valuable lesson in not following others blindly. :) At least you did it in a practice setting. I did that one race pacing behind 2 other swimmers and we all had to make about a 45 degree turn to get to the last turn buoy. Ugh. But to that, we only had a couple of buoys on a 2.5 mile course.

I'm back from my trip. I used the hi-vis greenish yellow buoy with a neon pink swim cap and am told I was quite visible from 300 yards away when I was swimming along the shoreline. I had a boat with me when did my 1700m swim across the lake, and the boat was way more visible than the buoy ;)

Sandy: The purpose of my trip was a canoeing and hiking vacation in Ontario and I was staying on a lake the whole time so my strategy won't work for you. I live in Delaware and our good open water swimming is at beaches on the Atlantic Ocean or Chesapeake Bay and it's tributaries. Races are typically in harbors that are otherwise closed to swimming. Freshwater is strictly mucky millponds. The surrounding states do have actual lakes that are used for open water races and triathlons so a google search might help you find lakes with public swimming areas. There a lots of triathlons near the Poconos in Pa and the Shenadoahs in Va so that might be a place to start your search