DISCLAIMER: Open-water swimming is inherently dangerous. Open-water swimmers risk drowning, hypothermia, hyperthermia, heart attacks, panic attacks, cramping, jelly fish stings, fish bites, boat or jet-ski collisions, collisions with floating or submerged objects (including other swimmers), and other calamities that can be injurious, disabling or fatal! The "West Neck Pod" is an informal association of open-water swimmers who swim "outside the lines" with no lifeguard protection, it has no formal membership, organizational structure or legal identity, and its participants, including the author of this blog, make no representations and assume no liability with respect to its group open-water swims. All swimmers who participate in West Neck Pod group open-water swims do so at their own risk. Be careful out there!

Saturday, May 25, 2013

"I'll take a rain check, please...!"

Paul, Carol and Marc
It was not yet 6:30 when the text messages and emails began trickling in, as one Podder after another bowed out for this morning's inaugural Memorial Day weekend swim, citing the rain and cold and apologizing for their delicacy...Although the pelting rain and 43-degree air temperature seemed a good enough reason for me to roll over and stay in bed too, the inner certainty that at least one of my buddies would show up, ready to go if conditions permitted, impelled me out of bed, into my bathing suit and down to West Neck Beach.  Predictably enough, minutes later Marc Leahy arrived, followed shortly thereafter by Paul Coster (and even later by Joye Brown), to join me in gaping at the tempest raging before us. Whitecapped waves raced past us, driven by a biting northerly wind that pushed the flag out stiffly and made the newly installed swim buoys rock crazily back and forth. Rain pelted our faces, and we stood there at the water's edge, laughing at ourselves for being there at all, for standing there in the wind and the rain and the cold, and for thinking, even a little bit, that "maybe we should swim anyway since we're here..."


Of course we didn't. What do you think we are, crazy?

See you in the Salt -- maybe tomorrow!




 

2 comments:

  1. I actually woke in a start at 5:30, anxious was I to get in... when I realized the house was a meager 62 degrees and my family was huddled under blankets and rain was still pelting down, I knew the writing was on the (sea)wall. Still, with hope in my heart, my alarm went off at 7 am. Rain still pelting, wind blowing, house cold. At least I waited until then to text you all. Great post. Love to see our "home" beach in all sorts of conditions, though more inviting ones would be nice. Geesh. xox gae

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    1. I know we've swum in the rain before, and in 43-degree weather, but when it was gloriously sunny and in the 80's just a few days ago, swimming today would have been misery...Patience, Grasshopper...

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