Open-water Swimming

Yesterday morning I did a 2.5-mile open-water swim on the Severn River with three friends from my Masters swimming club.  It was the second time this season I went out.  About three weeks ago a group of us swam, when the water and air temperature were about 54 degrees.  This time, both were about 10 degrees warmer.

Herald Harbor, where we swim, is a small cove a little less than a mile across. The shore is dotted with houses—many looking like they were built in the 1950s as vacation homes.  Many homes have docks for recreational boats and there’s a marina on the southern end.  In the cove, about a quarter mile from the shore, is an island that measures maybe 600 feet by 1,000 feet.  If you go to Google Maps and type in Herald Harbor, Maryland, you’ll see it.  I don’t know the name of the island.  The satellite view shows four docks and several big secluded houses or compounds on it. 

The water to between the shore and the island is known as Little Round Bay.  To the east is Round Bay and beyond that is the Severn River, which feeds into the Chesapeake Bay.

I’ve been doing these swims for five years.  Mike Jacobson, one of our Masters coaches, organized the swims as a way to train for the 4.5-mile Chesapeake Bay swim and the various triathlons that many of our Masters swimmers compete in.  We start as soon as the water temperature reaches 50 degrees, according to the NOAA weather station buoy in Annapolis.  (At the moment, the Annapolis station is down, but here’s a link to NOAA’s list of mid-Atlantic stations with summary information: http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/dsdt/cwtg/catl.html.)

We start our swims at 7:00am.  If the air is warmer than the water the mist that rises from the water gives the place a mystical feel. 

We start from a small beach that has a picnic table and a couple benches, and is surrounded by cattails.  Yesterday we all had wet suits but I, being a weenie, was the only one to wear one with sleeves. 

We swim around the island.  When we start off, I don’t put my face in the water right away; I do five or 10 arm pulls first to get acclimated.  Then starts the steady, rhythmic stroking.  The first leg is a .6-mile straightaway from the beach to the end of a pier that protrudes about a hundred yards out from the shore, which curves in so the dock is perpendicular from the beach.  It’s very easy to see, and there’s always a large power boat hoisted above the dock. 

When we all arrive at the dock, we begin the second leg, which takes us behind the island toward a channel marker that is very hard to see from the dock.  You have to kind of guess where you’re going.  As we get closer, I usually stop and get as high out of the water as possible to find the marker, then adjust course.  Swimming in a straight line is much easier when you can raise your head without changing your stroke to find your target.  On this portion of the swim I usually zig-zag quite a bit.  This leg also can be a bit unnerving, because occasionally a boater will motor out toward the river.  As a policy we wear brightly colored swim caps so we can be seen, but you don’t want to test just how visible you are.

When we arrive at the channel marker, we set off on the third leg, along the western side of the island to another channel marker.   This marker has a hawk’s nest high on top.  A couple years ago, an adult hawk was in the nest and not happy when we arrived.  She squawked a couple times and spread her wings majestically.  When we didn’t leave fast enough for her, she turned, raised her tail and let fly a projectile that traveled about 20 feet in our direction.  Luckily, the missile splashed harmlessly into the water, but we got the message and took off.

When we got to the marker this time, the hawk was again in her nest.  We wasted no time in heading for the beach on the final leg of the loop. 

The course took a little over an hour to complete.  The hardest part is getting your wetsuit off.  As we were packing up and heading out, one of the swimmers pointed to the water right where we had come in and asked what it was.

“It’s just a snake,” I said, its small head doing its own zig-zag just above the water.