Open water swimming

[pantheraba]

We drag a little swim bouy, that is nice because it adds a bit of security and allows you to be seen. You can hang on it if you get too tired.

Good idea on the buoy...boats are definitely a big concern. Cool that y'all can swim together. 1.5 miles is nothing to sneeze at...good show.

 

[stig]

Great story, Gary.
I can very well imagine how that SEAL felt.
Freediving into caves is really hard core.

My first cave dive was in Israel, in a hot spring fed lake.
Really nice place, water temperature always about 2 degrees above body temp.
Mail order bride and I used to go down there at night and swim naked.
Once a whole bunch of Palestinian males showed up and we had to hide in the bushes for hours.
A naked female would have sent them into sexual crazyland and there were too many for me to do anything about, so sitting and shivering in the dark was the only way.

Anyway, the cave dive.
I was told there was a fine limestone cave next to that lake, like 45 feet in.
So I trusted the guy who told me enough to hyperventilate for a bit and go into the opening.
Man, that was a looooong 45 feet

Nice cave, though.
Dark as hell, but breathable air.
Next time I went, I brought a candle and some matches in a film canister.
Cave was even better with a bit of light.

Today, almost any flashlight is waterproof, sure makes things easier.

Remember those film cans?
Before everything went digital, those little cannisters were the thing for storing all the small stuff in your back pack that you wanted to keep dry.
Weed and paper and such

 

[CurSedVoyce]

Ocean open water swimming, scuba or snorkel can mess with you sometimes. You are definitely out of your environment as a human being and lower on the food chain.

 

[pantheraba]

Man, that was a looooong 45 feet

hahaha....totally get that!

Crazy story about the cave...so you found a breathable pocket..and then went back with a match and candle!

Way hard core..

 

[kevin bingham]

Good idea on the buoy...boats are definitely a big concern. Cool that y'all can swim together. 1.5 miles is nothing to sneeze at...good show.

It would be nice if we could swim together, we got babies so that doesn't happen and besides she is literaly twice as fast as me. We just take turns. There is a group of swimmers that lake hop. Mostly people training for triathalons

 

[cory]

Was she a High school swimmer or did she take it up later? Seems like HS remain fast swimmers their whole life, relative to the most all other swimmers

 

[kevin bingham]

yeah she has been swimming her whole life. water polo and all state high school swimmer. At this point No matter how hard I would ever try I could never be as fast as her.

 

[cory]

Nice!!

Water polo, that's another dead giveaway for an amazing swimmer.

 

[No_Bivy]

What's her time on 10k.....sub twenty minute mile is fast!

Also..I'm curious about how she eats and drinks on those long swims...info would be appreciated

Night before...morning of....during

Thanks

 

[kevin bingham]

She eats a lot, she swims enough that I don't notice any particular difference in her eating or preping. She eats well. Brown rice and tofu and veggies with a little meat here and there. Lots of veggies. She does eat a lot, always munching on things. I've noticed too that swimming makes me really hungry. It also give a different kind of muscle than the sinewy stringy dense build i get from climbing. The swiming muscle is less dense somehow, more floaty perhaps.

 

[Chris E]

I love that ravenous hunger you get from water sports.

 

[kevin bingham]

I am amazed how much water she drinks too. She drinks gallons a day it seems. Like it helps her equalize with the water.

 

[Chris E]

As I try to avoid open water swimming as much as possible personally, here's a little second hand story on the topic. My good friend (the guy that introduced me to tree work) was doing some work on a prawn trawler on our tropical north coast, the waters are sharky as hell. It turns out the skipper of the boat was a real prick so being an impulsive type my friend decided he wanted out immediately. He double wrapped his cigarettes and jumped ship whilst the skipper was sleeping. I'm unsure the total distance yet he swam to the nearest land which was an island- he had rest stops along the way clinging to the hull of another boat plus some marker buoys. Its a tourist island and when he was nearing the shore people came and helped him the rest of the way in- pretty sure it was staff from a resort and the resort then gave him a room and bowl of fruit to recover.

 

[pantheraba]

Impulsive??

Crazy-assed! Guy must be a hoot to be around.

 

[MasterBlaster]

I've almost done that...

 

[Chris E]

Gary- yes and no in equal measures, but, nobody's perfect..

There was pretty horrific shark attack off the same island around about the same time. A young girl around 15 years old was swimming in shallow water attacked by 2 bull sharks. She had both her arms bitten off at the shoulders and bled to death. Terrible stuff...

I've almost done that...

Dew tail

 

[ch74]

NO_bivy i run a lot. About 5 miles a day almost every day of the week, so i do know that swimming def, burns more calories then running though, your going to be a beast when you can swim a whole 2.4 miles non stop. Good luck nutrition is the key to any regement though, so eat clean.... Good luck to you.

 

[No_Bivy]

NO_bivy i run a lot. About 5 miles a day almost every day of the week, so i do know that swimming def, burns more calories then running though, your going to be a beast when you can swim a whole 2.4 miles non stop. Good luck nutrition is the key to any regement though, so eat clean.... Good luck to you.

what do you mean by eat clean?

Kevin....So during a long swim she does not consume food or water?

 

[No_Bivy]

oh yeah....got my waterproofed iPod shuffle from Audio flood. It is awesome to swim with music.....suddenly I find myself getting my ass kicked again, but it turns out Im swimming faster.

super compact...holds 2gigs of music

going for 1.5 hr swim today at 7....hopeing for close to 3 mile...we shall see

 

[MasterBlaster]

I assume eating clean just means eating healthy food.

 

[No_Bivy]

well I'm good there i guess

1:40 2.9miles

did another 30 minute in pool to round up

took about 20min to get in the groove...felt as though i could go far past the 2 hour mark.......but its a supervised thing so I had to get out. Listening to music really put me in the zone.

500 meter course....11laps. Sighting is still an issue for me

 

[pantheraba]

That's very impressive...thanks for the update. You are rocking the swimming, John.

 

[CurSedVoyce]

Look these guys up... Living it man
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/fx_gGswM-p8" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

[cory]

That was real cool, thx for posting.

 

[woodworkingboy]

No calendars and citizenship is factitious. Cool vid.