Taking a Swim at Lake Serene

“Emancipate yourself from mental slavery” – Bob Marley

Date: December 12, 2010

Although this video was a reinactment of when I went swimming earlier today, it was a slower process before actually going in all the way. The video is a bit different from the actual first times I went in, the video was taken later in the day when the water was slightly warmer.

This weekend I had some interesting stuff go on, the weather was not ideal nor conditions, and there was a nwhikers social which made any overnight trip not possible. I had a fun time at the social, but came home still unsatisfied, or at least the adventurous side of me. After church I decided I wanted to do something new, something adventurous. I remember seeing on nwhikers a photo of some guy swimming in a cold looking lake, I decided that should be my challenge of the day, swimming in cold water.

It wasn’t as easy as I had hoped it would be, I knew it would not be easy. I planned on swimming at least a mile, but sadly that never came true. When arriving at the lake I took off my clothes except my swimming trunks, the cold water made my feet go numb very fast. When I got to knee deep it was painful to go any further, and I was forced to retreat. When I got back I thought to myself “This seemed a little crazy”, but then I thought back to people who do this stuff and thought “well I’m not the only one”. I looked back at the water and started talking to myself, I had to convince myself to go back in, this time to go at least waist deep. Why was I doing this, to see how far I can bend my natural will to do something out of the usual. One could call it mental training, “I’m sure they did it in the olden days” I thought to myself. I went back in, except this time went in all the way, I could feel the coldness surging through my body, and I could feel my heart racing, and it becoming harder to breathe. I immediatly wondered if this is something that is not good for me, after all loosing feeling when mountaineering is not something good.

I then swam back to shore, which I was shivering cold and I could feel the pulsing of cold pains all over my body. When I could finally feel enough so that I had the burning pains, it had a strange good feeling at the same time. Even as I type this now hours later I’m still feeling the effects of the cold, wearing double sweat pants and a down jacket still feeling cold. My brother explained about “chill to the bone” and that when you see those photos of people swimming in ice lakes, he bets they did not stay in for a long time. This was an interesting experience, it’s not as easy as it looks. If you don’t believe me, I dare you to go jump in a lake during this December and tell me how nice and “warm” you felt.

As for the video, I self recorded it, which was my first multi-video so that might explain the lack of quality if some of you mind.

Here’s some more photos of Lake Serene I took at different times:

I certainly learned that cold water is not very comfortable. Now I know the value of warm shower and warm mac and cheese which I had afterwards.