Open Water Season!

The Chatfield gravel pond is open for swimming!

Yeah, I know it's still cold and there's more snow in the forecast. But the calendar says it's May, and therefore open water season. The Park Rangers have declared it thus, and COMSA has arranged for people to sit on the shore and verify that everyone has signed the proper waiver. And believe it or not, there are people who show up to swim.

As I've stated before, it's a known fact (backed by billions of reliable scientific studies) that swimmers are smarter than normal people. (Infinitely sexier, too, but that's not germane to this discussion.) However, this high intelligence does not preclude the possibility that some of them are not necessarily sane.

I volunteered to be the Hall Monitor on the first Monday of May. I knew the water would be cold and had no particular desire to swim myself, and therefore figured that it would be a good opportunity to put in some volunteer hours so I wouldn't feel guilty about avoiding my civic responsibilities later in the summer when I did want to swim. The gig is pretty simple: bring a folding chair, a wide-brimmed hat, and a clipboard, and verify that each swimmer is registered with COMSA and has signed the "It's my own fault if I become fish food" waiver form. I put on my ballcap, printed out the registration list and a handful of blank waivers, and grabbed my camp chair out of the storage closet. I was ready to go.

Well, not really. Turns out the bag I grabbed from the storage closet actually contained my folded-up camping "coffee table" (complete with mesh cup holders) instead of a chair... but I could still sit on it, I suppose. I didn't discover the mistake until I was at the pond, so I just hoped that no one would notice. Or if they did, that they'd assume that I was merely eccentric in my choice of outdoor lounging accessories, and not a moron (and therefore unworthy of the "swimmer" label).

According to Chris Nolte's portable thermometer, the water temperature was 54.7°. Most swimmers don't consider the water to be comfortable until it reaches the high 70s, so we were definitely in what most people would consider wetsuit territory. In fact, the first several people who took the plunge wore multiple caps, including a couple of folks who had the strap-on earflap thingies that made them look like Charles Lindbergh.

About a dozen people were brave enough to swim that evening. I was entertained by watching several of them struggle into their wetsuits, which apparently are designed with the idea that you'll be covered with Crisco when you attempt to pull them on. But there were a few brave souls who decided to swim without the aid of full-body neoprene, and so I was treated to the sounds of hideous shrieking and colorful language as well.

I learned that those hardy folks were training to swim a relay across the English Channel, and are trying to learn how to deal with very cold water so they'll be ready when they jump in there with the sharks and seals and u-boats and stuff. More power to 'em, I say. The problem is that this pond will soon be too warm to satisfy their need for icebergian conditions, and they'll have to migrate to higher elevations. Theirs will be an interesting story throughout the summer; perhaps I'll try to collect some interviews and share their quest with you as it progresses.

With so few swimmers, and such entertaining people to watch, the monitoring job was simple and actually pretty fun. The only stress came when one of the women didn't return at the expected time and we started to worry. This meant that several of us stood on the shoreline straining our eyeballs for signs of splashing: "Is that her? No, that's a duck. How about that? Nope, that's a guy fishing. Where is she?"

She eventually appeared, and it turned out that she was merely enjoying herself at the other end of the pond, swimming a few strokes and then floating around for a bit, watching the clouds and becoming "one with Nature", I guess. Unlike the standard triathlete types who make up most of the pond's population, and want to just crank across the pond without pause (and some, without even looking to see where they're going), this woman was determined to get the most possible enjoyment out of smelling the roses. (Or the fishes, or whatever -- but you know what I mean.) She was having a great time, and didn't think that the folks on shore would be getting ready to call out the Coast Guard. But all ended well, and everyone who entered the pond safely re-emerged before the 7pm deadline. It was a good day for all concerned, I think.

Anyway, the point is that the pond is open, and it won't be long before I'll expect to see hundreds of humans joining the fish and geese in making use of this resource. I may even try it myself soon. I'll let you know. In the meantime, have a great day!

Oh, and FYI -- no one noticed that I was sitting on a "table". Whew!