Big Waves, Dark Night, Old Swim Buddy

Today at the lake I swam in crazy strong waves, in the dark, while my summer swim buddy spotted me from the beach. 

To be honest, I quit swimming a week ago, maybe longer, because I was so exhausted with putting so much time into finding swim buddies and almost never finding anyone to swim with. I have only met one swimmer who enjoys swimming at night, and she actually has a life. So, it got too hard to miss out on swimming day after day after day. 

Then yesterday I got a text from my friend C who I met this past summer when she answered my post on Nextdoor looking for a swim buddy. She’s in town for a week (having moved to the midwest back in Sept) and wanted to see me swim in all my gear! Yes, yes, yes. I was so happy for a few reasons: 1. It’s hard to make new friends, so I felt honored that she wanted to get together and wanted to watch me swim in all my gear.  2.  The holidays suck for me, aside from my birthday weekend, which is happening NOW, so getting an unexpected invite to connect is a bonus. 3. I love when I can share an interest or adventure with someone else. We are in different places with our swimming. Fun for me to share what I’ve learned. 

We get to the beach around 8pm, I think. I got there earlier, and had a funny on-the-sidewalk conversation with some women on their way to karaoke night. They were getting in their smokes before heading to the bar. I noticed two of them had accents, so I asked where they were from: Berlin and Bulgaria. The only thing I know about Bulgaria—that the unit of currency is called “stotinki”— I learned playing the dictionary game 20 years ago with friends. So I asked the lady from Bulgaria if she would please give me a stotinki. She had some on her, and gave me a 20 stotinki coin! 

C arrived, and we hauled my giant gear bag down the cement steps to the beach. I hand’t thought to check the weather, the temperature, or what the water was doing. It was kind of raging. The waves were so loud. In the dark it was hard to videotape them, but they were big and coming in fast and hard. C said it was ok if I just got in and got out, and I said, “Oh, this is not a problem for me. If the waves are too strong for me to swim I’ll just get chest-deep and walk up and down parallel to the beach.” Love that she was concerned for me, as were the smoking karaoke ladies, but I was desperate to get into the water so I didn’t really see the wild waves as much of an obstacle. 

It is funny what we all think of as deal breakers or obstacles or reasons to not do something. I remember many, many years ago writing a magazine article about polar explorer Ann Bancroft. She said that to her, cold places were beautiful…and what would be scary to her would be putting on a suit and having to work in an office every day. The other thing she stressed was that a lot of preparation and training goes into her trips. 

That’s how it is with swimming at night in cold water on December 18th, 2021. I don’t want to be cold. I hate being cold. I won’t want to drown. I don’t want to swallow water. I try to be careful. I almost never swim alone, and I’d never go alone at night. I wear as much protective gear as I can, and I recently upgraded to warmer gloves (they are flipping awesome). I have so much to learn, but I respect the water’s power and try to monitor what I’m feeling and where I am so I stay safe. Tonight was tough going because the water was rough, but I still did the same thing. I walked in to about my waist, then I walked parallel to the beach—up and back—a few times to get my body used to the water. I didn’t feel any cold because I was sheathed in thick neoprene. Then I went into slightly deeper water, maybe chest high, and walked some more. Then I “dove” in and tried to swim. I went a few strokes, then pulled up. I repeat this about four times, then I stay in and swim. My faced acclimated to the water very quickly. 

My new gloves were crazy effective. Not a drop of water got through, and they keep my hands perfectly warm.  I have not dialed in my head gear, though. I switched to a hood so I’d have more coverage, also hoping the bib of the hood would take up space under the neck of the wetsuit so it wouldn’t leak. Well, all wetsuits leak, so I’m over that now. But sometimes the water gets in and reaches my ears. It’s not a big deal, not even a distraction, but I don’t want cold water in my ears. Maybe I can wear a silicone cap under the hood. I already wear a yellow silicone cap over the hood — always for visibility. 

The fun thing about night swims is putting my floodlight into my swim buoy. It is so bright that my buoy is illuminated and visible, even from a distance. The bonus is getting a bit of light under the water. The back is on my side and mostly behind me, but it gives off enough glow that I can see the sand on the bottom of the lake. It also makes shadows. I didn’t realize what was happening at first. I saw something dark flash in front of me. I wasn’t startled (too tired and too focussed on my task), but was wondering…” what is that” every time this dark thing would flash past me, just a few feet in front of my face. I finally figured out that it was the shadows of my arms! With the back lighting, my strokes were making shadows. Sweet. 

I was really comfortable in the water tonight. It sounds so corny to say I “was in the zone,” and it’s not totally accurate but it’s the only way I can think to describe it right now. On one level, I didn’t really notice the choppy water. I was just trying to do my stroke and remember to sight so I didn’t get washed to shore. Except….even with the strong waves I found myself in deeper water a few times. I quickly repositioned and swam in with a wave so I could swim in the shallow water. I had promised my friend/spotter that I would stay in waist-deep water so I wouldn’t be too far out. [Later we discussed the need to have a way to communicate since I could not hear her yelling to me. We thought maybe flashlights with red flasher modes would be a good way to signal to each other. Note for next time.]

I love the feeling of reaching out with my arms and legs to do breast stroke. Even with the neoprene, which can feel restrictive, it felt amazing tonight to be in the water, alone, reaching and stretching and pulling. It never feels hard to do that, and I really wasn’t bothered by the waves. But here’s what: I am not in shape. I was breathing pretty hard, and knew I wasn’t going to be able to stay in as long as I wanted to. I was having little deja vu images of the silhouette of my snorkel in front of my face. I wasn’t sure if was one of those eye things where an image gets burned in there for a bit or if I was dizzy or dehydrated and seeing things. Well, I knew I was seeing it; I just didn’t know if it was an eye thing or a brain thing. 

I tried to swim slowly and focus on my form. I came up to stand more than I wanted to so I could take out my snorkel and gulp some air. I came out of the water at about 11 minutes because I’d seen another light on the shore and was concerned that someone else was on the beach, maybe walking a dog, and I didn’t want C to feel scared. I came all the way out of the water because I can’t hear anything with my hood on. Turned out the light was her, wearing my headlamp (note to self—that’s as seriously bright head lamp). She said I’d been in for 11 minutes. I decided to go back in for another few minutes so I could do 15 and call it a night. 

Usually I get chilled when I get out or even stay in but stop swimming. Not tonight. The new gloves were so crazy warm. I knew I was really tired, but I wanted to swim just a bit more. Then dizzy image thing was still there so I took it as a message to just stay with it, don’t push too hard, but swim a bit. 

A few minutes later I got out, and that’s when it got hard. It’s cold and windy tonight, so getting out of the gear and into dry clothes was key. It was my first time wearing the new gloves, and my wetsuit wrists and ankles are so snug that I couldn’t get the suit sleeves over/off the gloves. C had to help me. It was a complete ordeal. We finally got them off. I had put on a hat the minute I got out of the water, so my head was warm (it has gore-tex inside the fleece that stops the wind). I got the top half of the suit down to my waist, and was able to sit down. C got my Blancho out and dropped it across the front of my body. Then I toweled off my arms and torso before pulling on my moth-eaten (I am still not over this and f-ing hate the moths) yak wool hoodie. C handed me my fleece jacket, then I put on my Honcho Poncho and asked C to snap the side snaps to stop the back of the poncho from blowing up. 

With my top half sorted and warm, I sat on a new, dry towel to remove the wetsuit. Again I struggled with the tight ankles to get the suit off over my two layer of socks. Then I pulled of my suit, stood up to towel off my legs, then quickly sat back down on my towel. I pulled on my blue striped Hanna Anderson pj bottoms, then my wool socks, then put on my boots. So happy to get all the dry stuff on. Next, I sat on a different part of the bench that was dry and drank a bunch of water. I’m really good at taking the time to re-hydrate once I’m dry. I have to assume I’m dehydrated when I get out of the water. C and I chatted a bit while I get more water in me. My wet gear was scattered all over the pavement in front of the bench. I tossed everything into my old trunk bag (which I found in my car a few days ago, full of moldy junk from a trip back in August…why am I so stupid and lazy to leave things in my trunk for months….I always forget that it is not storage….I have ruined so many things by forgetting them in my trunk. Anyway, I cleaned the trunk bag and washed it in the machine so now it’s my swim bag.}

C helped me haul the giant, heavy bag to my car. I invited her to the Solstice swim on Tues. More on that later.