Open-water swimming now? Just say “NO”-vember!!

The first open-water swim of November 2013 was as hair-raising and spooky as yesterday’s Halloween swim should have been....Though the fearsome southwesterly wind did not quite reach the nearly 40 mph gusts that were predicted, it was still blowin’ quite a gale when we arrived – just in time for the pelting rain – shortly before our scheduled 10:30 swim. A thin ribbon of fog was forming on the opposite shore and stealthily making its way across the harbor, threatening to obliterate the South Buoy we’d be swimming toward on an outgoing high tide. But the air temperature was nearly in the mid-sixties, the air felt summer-warm, and the water looked so inviting, despite the white-capped waves crashing on the beach, that it would have been torture not to be able to swim (especially for Annmarie Kearney-Wood, who’d driven up from the South Shore so as not to miss this first November swim). Joye Brown, who’d just checked in with the weather-gods, assured us that this was just a passing squall, and that the thunderstorm/lightning warning for the area (who knew!) would be lifted at 10:30, just in time for our swim. As it turned out, Joye and the weather-gods were right, and we only had to wait in our cars for a short while before the rain stopped and the fog lifted and we could finish suiting up and head into the swirling Salt for our first November swim....

Joye Brown

Gae and Annmarie and waves...

Steven

 For Gae Polisner and Annmarie, who haven’t been swimming regularly in this post-season and were not completely acclimatized to the cold water, "The-House-Formerly-Known-as-Blue" was a sufficient target, and they made their way there, hugging the shoreline (which was easy, since that’s where the wind was pushing them!). The rest of us (Carole Wickham, Joye Brown, Steven Leung and I) continued on to the South Buoy – not an easy trek even for Steven, who’d be a West Neck Polar Pod "Big-Dog" if there were any other Big-Dogs out here to swim with him! The way back was a lot easier, though, with the tide and the wind conspiring to whoosh us homeward. Getting out was a breeze, despite the wind, and we were warm enough to enjoy the still-flowing outside showers despite the lack of sun.

South Buoy in November (with Joye, Carole and Steven!)

 

Holdouts Joye and me, both reluctant to get out of the water....

While the others showered and dressed and Joye and I dawdled on the beach, still in our wetsuits, our attention was suddenly caught by a figure at the far end of the parking lot edging across the sand towards the water. She? – we nearsightedly assumed – was clad only in bikini briefs, and though her arms were crossed in front of her chest, she appeared to be topless! We all watched as she stepped tentatively over the rocks and into the water, then kept going.... Momentarily panic-stricken, I thought, "Oh, no, is this a suicide attempt?" and watched in anguish as the woman forged ahead and then suddenly threw herself forward, disappearing beneath an oncoming wave. She popped up again a moment later and, to my great relief, immediately turned towards shore, found her footing, and made her careful way back onto the beach, her arms again folded discreetly across her otherwise bare chest....No, I realized, this was no suicide attempt – this was the opposite of a suicide attempt! This was a woman daring to feel herself alive...throwing herself into the Salt, giving birth to herself, baptizing herself...She was here to live....She was here for the same reason we were...! I raised my arms in salute and whooped with approbation and solidarity, and she smiled and nodded in recognition and acceptance as she made her solitary way back to the parking lot and her car....

Joye, who by now had stripped off her wetsuit, tossed me a sidelong look, grunted something unintelligible, then set off resolutely towards the water. I knew, and I knew Joye knew, that there was no way our wetsuited/begloved/bootied swim to the South Buoy and back could match the chest-clutching, bare-breasted heroism of that unknown woman on the beach, and I knew that Joye was on a mission to rectify that. Of course I followed her, stripping off my wetsuit in the Salt, while Joye, shoulder-deep, busied herself beneath the waves. Moments later, she held her bathing suit aloft, and as our now-dressed-and-ready-to-leave woman-hero’s car drove slowly past the beach, I pulled my bathing suit down to my waist and raised my arms in a bare-breasted salute to her, to Joye, to my Polar-Pod fellows cheering us on from the beach, to the Salt, to Life....

Of course Gae took a picture, but I’m not posting that....See you in the Salt tomorrow at 8:00 for the second open-water swim of November 2013!  L’chaim!