Writing instead of swimming

It was raining this morning when I setoff on my morning jog around Green Lake just to the north of downtown Settle in the northwest of the United States.  Because it was raining, I didn’t take my iPhone, so I don’t have a photograph of the woman who was swimming in this large duckpond.   When I got home, I checked the lakemonster.com website, and it says the surface water temperature was just 59°F, which is 15°C.

I have only been here a week, and it is the first time I have seen someone swimming in Green Lake.  She wasn’t wearing a wetsuit – just a swimsuit, goggles and a bathing cap.

She cut a lonely figure, moving slowly across the surface with an even paced freestyle, attached to her waist was a bright orange floatation device.

Then she stopped, at the platform with the diving boards, described on the websites as the raft across from the brick theatre originally build in 1928 as a bathhouse.

Holding on to one of the rails along the front of the platform, she checked her watch – and I began to applaud loudly from the shore, from in front of the theatre.   She looked across the water to me and called out, ‘Thank you,’ in a very Seattle accent.

I could see then that she was about my age – an older white woman.  Then she put her goggles back in place and lowered her head into that very cold body of water and started swimming again, slowly, one arm over, then the other.  I kept applauding.

I thought the applauding might warm my hands, if nothing else.  The air temperature was just 51°F, which is 11°C that is quite cold – at least for me, born in northern Australia where it never gets this cold.

I was only wearing a thin sweatshirt and track pants, both already wet from the rain. I was most of the way around the lake that has a circumference of 4.6 kms, that is nearly three miles.

I have decided I want to acclimatise to this cold climate.

It is what I try and do wherever I go these last few years: to be adaptable.

‘Do as the Romans when in Rome’ is what one used to say.

Though I have noticed that most everyone else moving around the perimeter of this lake this morning – this lake come duckpond – this morning is wearing raincoats over jumpers.  Then there is the older woman in the water.

I have been thinking about getting in the water and going for a swim, myself.   My daughter, whom I am staying with in an apartment nearby, has been concerned about water quality with all the duck and goose poop, and we did see a rotting fish in the shallows the other day.  My daughter, she has said that she will not be getting in with me.

I’ve checked levels of cyanobacteria (blue green algae) that can produce harmful neurotoxins: they are within acceptable limits in Green Lake, at the moment.   I have been searching for whatever data I can find.

Everything I have read on the internet in the last week about swimming in Green Lake, suggests the biggest issue will be the water temperature.   That the water is currently too cold for most of us.  That the water won’t make us sick, if only we can survive the freezing.

There is a sign near the bathhouse that says, ‘Early Season at Madrona and East Green Lake begins Memorial Day weekend’ and ‘Summer Season at all nine locations begins late June’.   Today is Saturday, May 18^th.   Memorial Day is observed on the last Monday of May, which will be in 10 days – not quite yet.

I have also been reading up on the history of Green Lake that once drained into Puget Sound that empties into the northwest Pacific Ocean.

Despite all the rhetoric about global warming I can’t find any information to suggest that the swim season, for example, here at Green Lake, that it is getting earlier, because it is that much warmer.  Warmer, at least relative to how it used to be when there was less carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

But surely this follows logically? If we now have global boiling.   Surely, we can start swimming on the first day of spring that was a while ago – I wish.

While water temperature is purportedly the limiting factor when it comes to swimming now in Green Lake, and while we are told it is now that much hotter than it ever was, it appears there are fewer people swimming, than when the bathhouse was built in 1928.   According to the history books, the first year the bathhouse was in operation – providing somewhere for swimmers to get changed and safely leave their belongings – at least 53,000 people swam in Green Lake as measured by the number of people who used the bathhouse that year.

The old photographs show crowded beaches, even synchronised swimming as a performance that could be watched from the community centre that is around the other side of the lake.

There are two swimming areas at Green Lake, but only one, West Green Lake, was opened for swimming last season, during the 2023 summer.   There was apparently only a need for one swimming area, and a shortage of lifeguards.  Apparently, that is the other limiting factor: not only is the water is too cold for most of the year but when it is warm enough there are not enough lifeguards to open both beaches.

The population of Seattle has grown somewhat since 1928, and the climate is apparently warmer now, yet there are perhaps fewer people swimming and apparently fewer people who want to be lifeguards.

I would argue that this reflects our growing disconnect with nature, not just here in Seattle but across The West.

I would argue that as a civilisation we purport to care more and more about the natural environment, but I am inclined to think that most people are less inclined to immerse themselves in it – by which I mean nature.

This is a pity, because there is something very cathartic about just being in nature, even if it is a rather cold duckpond, that was once a marsh – that is now Green Lake not too far from downtown Seattle.

To be continued.