I’m in the "delayed drowning’ class of swimmer that another poster pioneered. I took swimming lessons for 3 years as an 8 yo kid, and never progressed past one pool length. But in my defense, i was more interested in the high school girls teaching me than I was in learning to swim. It was all perfectly innocent at that age of course, but i do remember liking them a whole lot for reasons I didn’t understand. Ahem, well, ** cough ** sorry for that um digression.
But yeah i never leave land without my pfd on. Without it, I’d probably be in trouble fairly fast. With it, I didn’t even worry much even when I’ve had to exit in breakers
Surfing in the Pacific Ocean is good practice for swimming in aerated rivers.
Swimming some rapids is even better practice.
I used to be able to hold my breath for 2 minutes. Now 30 seconds is not that easy.
Now I run easy rivers with a drift boat. Sold the sea kayak and all the canoes.
Funny how these posts come back from the dead after years…
I am a class II+/III- open boater who pretty regularly paddles at the edge of my ability, so I get a fair amount of practice swimming. I’ve done swimming practice at swiftwater rescue sessions - its actually a lot of fun.
I have had four unintentional swims this year - all in whitewater. Three were were quick in-and-outs. The last was in a long, fast moving rapid that ended in a ledge. I knew that I needed to roll over and swim to shore before the ledge, and I did it, but it was exhausting. Once I was out it took me a while to catch my breath - not as young as I used to be.
Back in the day I used to make and effort to try to recover my boat. Now, unless it is a real easy rapid, I don’t even bother. I get myself to shore, and hope my boat can run the rapid. I always paddle with folks that I know, and they are good about going after the boat.
I paddle mostly with kayakers, and almost every kayaker paddling class III and up has a roll - they rarely swim in a rapid that I am likely to dump in. It has been years since I have seen anyone set a safety with a throw line. Even if they did, I don’t know how accurate the throw would be - not something that gets practiced.
When I saw this post, the first thing that came to my mind was cold water - imbecilla said it best:
Haven’t had an unintentional swim in my sea kayak yet, but it will happen eventually. Sea kayakers are much better at rescue practice than whitewater paddlers.
Yes, I can swim. I lived within a mile of the ocean growing up and lived on a lake side property as a teen. I made spending money free diving to collect marine tropical fish during the summer and could also hold my breath for an extended amount of time. The water in south Florida didn’t often get very cold. I spent so much time in the water with friends my parents said they thought I would grow fins.
I do wear a PFD when in a boat on the water and have for many years now. Not something I did on a regular basis growing up other than while water skiing, and later on in whitewater. Once I started sea kayaking it became a regular habit. I will be racing on a sailboat today and wearing a PFD. I’m also living where the water can get much colder part of the year than where I grew up and I am growing older as the years add up.
Oops, I didn’t realize this wasn’t a new post and I had responded to this before.
I wouldn’t consider that standard being able to “actually swim” and yes, I can do those standards easily. Frankly, you should be able to float/tread water much longer than a minute. In the US Army you would be considered a weak swimmer if you could only float/tread water for a minute in full uniform.
Agree with @davbart - treading for a minute is of little use and may even contribute to overconfidence.
When I was 10 or 11, we moved to a house on an old quarry that had filled with water, perhaps 300 yards across at the widest point. One spring day, to my delight, Dad came home with a red (!) Grumman canoe tied to the top of our '61 Ford wagon. But there were strings attached. (1) I could not take the canoe out alone without a life jacket (a lovely orange kapok vest) and an extra paddle, And (2) I must first prove that I could swim across the lake and back without stopping or standing on the other side. That would be 4 x the distance I’d have to swim if I dumped right in the middle and couldn’t self-rescue. That summer, I was on the water solo by the 4th of July. I’m fairly sure I could still do it, probably not doing the crawl stroke, but with a blend of less stressful side and back strokes instead.
Well, yes I can swim. A couple of years ago, due to my long service as a wilderness search and rescue volunteeer, I was fortunate enough to be allowed to take a class to become certified as a swift water and flood rescue technician. This faciility near my home in NY State was the first such training facility in the USA, rushing with 100,000 gallons of water a minute over cascading whitewater artificial rocks and a low head dam flow and a cityscape flood. Before being allowed to take the course I had to swim usiing several strokes over several hundred yards. Later I also certified in ice water rescue through the ice on a lake. Then I also certified in inflatable motor boat whitewter rescue. All of it great fun and instructive.
In my experience, river runners are much better at rescues than all other paddlers combined. I don’t paddle rivers with people that don’t practice. The first thing to do with newbies, is get them swimming some easy rapids and have people practice throwing lines, belaying and swinging people in the current.
Can I swim, not as well as I used to. That’s a fact.
it’s been years since I’ve been a certified lifeguard. 49 to be exact.
I used to be able to hold my breath underwater easily for over a minute, a minute 30 if I just let myself sink and sat on the bottom.
now I’m hard pressed to do 45 seconds.
I still swim better underwater than I do on the surface, but it’s nothing like when I was on the swim team in HighSchool.
However im also quite more buoyant now than I was back then, I guess that’s an advantage of getting fatter and of course with that comes the extra insulation so I don’t get as cold as fast as I used to.
can I swim, probably no at-least not like I used to, do I know the mechanics yep but no longer have the endurance I used to have.
I grew up spending all my summers on the shores of Lake Michigan and at scout camps with lakes, but I never actually had swimming instruction as a kid. My dad told me that even as a baby if he put me near the water I would crawl in and be laughing and sputtering as the water broke over my face but would keep going – he used to joke that if he hadn’t pulled me out I would have crawled from Muskegon to Milwaukee.
As I got older I was pretty much thrashing around and doing instinctive dog paddling and a clumsy version of a crawl. When I was in high school Dad insisted we kids take swimming lessons at the YMCA pool so I signed up when I was 16 and learned the basics (breaststroke, sidestroke, Aussie crawl, backstroke). Was never terribly good at any of them so I also signed up for swimming as one of my phys ed mandatory electives in college, which was much more rigorous. We were required to start the class by treading water in the deep end for 10 minutes! I suspect this was more to warm us up for the practice to come rather than being any sort of skill development. But I quickly figured out how to use something I had long been aware of: I am so freaking buoyant that I can literally just hang, legs down, in the water and my head stays above it. Probably due to having rather light bone structure , high center of gravity and a “fluffy” chest. Or I am part otter… I would just relax and gently wave my hands and feet in the water to make it seem like I was working hard to stay afloat until the whistle blew, while my classmates were gasping and straining. Did get some guff from the instructor for not putting my face in the water when doing the breaststroke or crawl, but I still made good progress without having to burn my eyes with the chlorine.
When I SCUBA dive, I have to add a bunch of weights to achieve neutral buoyancy because I’m such a cork. I have to fight to swim underwater and in a 3/4 wet suit if I try to sit on the bottom of a pool I will eventually rise to the surface like a bubble. My BMI has always been between 23 and 29 and currently is 25 which is on the light end of the optimal range for my age and height, so it’s not because I’m chubby. I do have large lung capacity for my body size but I don’t know if that has an effect.
This was continually a problem during my PADI courses because of the drill where we have to shed all our gear underwater and then put it back on again – dropping my belt and tank meant an express trip to the surface. Another aspect of SCUBA for me is that my metabolism is so slow that I use tank air much more slowly than most other divers. Dive guides and masters that don’t know me are always tapping on my pressure gauges because they think they are stuck when everyone else is at 30% and I’m still at 60%. This could also be due to my relaxation under water – I don’t hyperventilate.
Because of these weird natural traits, I have never been afraid of immersion or deep water, so I think being so relaxed about it probably helps me deal with capsizes and emergencies. No big deal, not worried about sinking or drowning. Being able to float vertically means I can hang in the water while I arrange the deck and paddle for self or assisted rescue, and not needing both hands to help myself stay above water means I don’t tend to drop the paddle.
I know I can always flail my way to the shore once I’m on the surface, may not be pretty but I’ll get there, even if I have to tow the boat. I’ve even dozed off while relaxing into a sustained static balance brace with my GP and SOF.
