Give a night swim a go

I know a lot of people find the idea of open water swimming terrifying. The idea that you just don’t know what could be beneath you triggers instincts we’ve had for good reasons since before the first animal crawled out of the sea, and it can be a tough ask to learn to ignore that primordial terror. About the only thing worse than that would be asking someone to swim in open water at night when the water is inky black and everything above that is not much brighter. Suddenly that fleeting brush of an ankle by pond weed feels like it could be something very different.

If you are someone who could possibly get past that unease, night swims are awesome. And to prove it, I’d like to present exhibit A, my 12 year old son Dominic.

‘When Dad told me about a night swim I was excited so we decided to do it’

Dom

Dominic’s statement above isn’t entirely true. He’s a tweenager and like all his mates, when I suggest something new to him the default response is ‘No Thanks’. We had a brief discussion and Dom quickly realised saying ‘Ok’ was going to be less grief than protesting, and no matter what he said, staying home playing Fortnite was not going to be an option. I’m keen to encourage him to do stuff he wouldn’t always find himself, and he knows he won’t win every time.

I knew my local lake was running it’s last OW night swim of the season, and I wanted Dom to experience something different (and a little spooky) before we lost the chance for the best part of a year. I signed us both up, and soon we were in the car, on the way to the swim center.

‘On the drive down I was nervous because I had never done one before’

Dom

Dom was unusually quiet in the car. I reassured him that the buoys used as swim markers would be lit up like Christmas trees, but as we arrived, I was more than a little worried I’d got the date wrong – it was late, and dark – especially the swim center, which was very very dark indeed. Most especially the lake – we couldn’t even see the entrance to the water, let alone any of the buoys, which were not lit at all….

As we parked up and walked in, I realised that they had deliberately cut down as much light pollution as they could to make the night as dark as they could. Dom was still quiet, and even the lake staff noticed he wasn’t his usual bouncy self; I reassured them he was just processing a complicated set of feelings, but I thought he would be fine.

‘When we got there we registered and opened our race pack. I had 4 glow sticks; 2 went around my arm, one around my neck and one tied to the back of my swimming hat. I also had lots of sweets in my goody bag for later’

Dom

Its amazing how a bag of sweets can cheer a child up. Dom had been adamant that he wanted to swim wetsuit free – the lake was warm enough at over 20 degrees c, but I had the extra buoyancy a wetsuit gives in the back of my mind – when he saw everyone else suiting up, he soon decided a wetsuit would be a better option after all. Getting into the suit in the dark and adding all the glow tubes added a couple of minutes to our prep time, but by this time we’d met a lot of friends, many of whom were going for their first night swim and there was a nicely excited buzz as we helped each other get ready. I swore when I realised I’d forgotten to swap my heavily polarized goggles for a more normal pair.

‘At 9:50 we went to the race brief and suddenly all the lights turned on. the bouys were lit up in blue and marshals on kayaks had green outlining. The lake was suddenly filled with colour we walked down to the lake. The race was on!’

Dom

As the brilliant staff carried out a extra detailed safety briefing, the safety boat and kayaks launched, outlined in brightly glowing green and red LED light strips – you could clearly see each kayaker paddling as cartoon outlines swiftly carrying them around the lake. I breathed a sigh of relief as the safety crew activated the neon blue lights wrapped around each triangular buoy in turn – they did indeed light up like Christmas trees. Dom quickly stopped giving me the angry looks I’d been ignoring for a while.

As we walked down the shore and into the warm water, each swimmer was lit up by their glow sticks as they submerged their arms and chest. They all quickly found some space and started swimming. I know walking in was intimidating, but as soon as each swimmer was floating and could see how much illumination was being given off by their glow sticks, you could almost hear the relaxation.

It was much more calmly paced than a usual swim, with a lot of the swimmers chatting as they went around. I’d quickly discovered my goggles were useless in the dark, so had moved them to the top of my head.

‘ It was a beautiful time to do a night swim. The night sky was clear and there were loads of stars when we looked up. The lake temperature was warm. The scene was set, it was a beautiful environment. We had planned to swim 800m in a relaxed style. We had a nice time talking while swimming, every so often spotting someone from dads club and wishing them luck as they swam away’

Dom

It was beautiful. There was very little light pollution where we were which meant there were thousands of stars above us. With glow sticks on our wrists, every stroke of front crawl or breast stroke threw the light about, and stretching out in front of us and behind us the glow sticks of the other swimmers bobbed in a fluorescent green and yellow stream, curving tightly around the buoys and within the watchful stick figure kayakers. I don’t know how, but a number of friends picked us out as we swam and paused for a chat, often then sprinting off after a young family member who was having too much fun to stop for long.

‘We spent the final stretch doing  front crawl. As we reached the shore we got out  and received a really good  medal’.

Dom

After each 400m lap, swimmers were able to exit the water and regroup, or continue swimming until the hour was up. We did a gentle two laps then carefully exited, claiming our medal and making sure we’d handed in our swimmer tracking band so the team knew we were out of the water.

‘We went home on a good note and I look forward to doing  another one.  If anyone is thinking of doing a night swim definitely take the chance. It was really fun.’

Dom

I was really proud of Dom – he marched straight into the water, swam confidently off and found himself enjoying something a lot of people would refuse to do. In return he had an experience that was totally unlike anything he’d done before (including a lot of OW swimming and a Scuba night dive) and was still talking about several days later.

I’m certain next time I ask him to join me for a night swim, I’ll get a different answer and suspect he’ll be talking the hind legs off the lake staff when we arrive. If this is something you fancy, check out your nearest lake and get down there and give it a go. If it’s something that terrifies you think about being brave and doing something that’s difficult, not easy….