That, and I’d be very fearful of sharks too. Lake sharks that is. 
It’s more the freak accident thing where your body stops working the way that it is expected to problem.
I’m also kind of fanatic about the buddy system or at least the “someone on shore who knows I’m in the water” system. Can anyone in the family hang out at the dock for the time it takes you to do your swim?
Is that chart accurate? When I was younger (age 12-21 or so) I used to do a lot of early spring and late fall swimming - I’d routinely swim for hours in water that was as low as 45f or so, without suffering any noticible loss of function or even feeling bad. This chart says you’d be exhausted or unconcious in 30-60 minutes. 55 degree water I know I could spend all day in, because I did once when I was young. Not trying to sound macho or anything, I’m wondering if there’s something unusual about me or if that chart is conservative/overstating the danger.
I am 72 and not in particularly good shape. Last winter in Barbados I swam over a half mile in the ocean (on the calm west side of the island). I was not alone and the person who accompanied me was a strong swimmer. Sure you can drown.
But, there was no undertow, I had not been drinking and I mostly swim the elementary backstroke, which I could keep up for hours. Also, I float readily in salt water. A lake cannot have undertow (no waves, unless you are talking about the Great Lakes), but it is not as buoyant. I still think it is safe. I don’t know how many people drown, but 40,000 Americans die in traffic every year. And yes, I’ve known some of them, while I have never known any who drowned. Of course, there’s a lot more driving than swimming, so that proves nothing. Still I think it safer than driving. It seems to me that when I hear news of drownings, it is either small children or people who fell out of a boat or whose boat overturned in bad weather.
I know a very strong swimmer who almost died because his dumb ass decided to try swimming across a very deep, cold lake in his jeans. So don’t do that.
The reason I asked, was I wanted to know if there was something that happens to swimmers sometimes that I wasn’t thinking of.
Cramps, panic, drowning. Yes, it happens to good swimmers.
The “you’ll get a cramp and panic and die” thing always puzzles me. I’ve never in my life had a cramp bad enough that it would cause me to panic or have trouble staying afloat. Maybe I just don’t get bad cramps?
As for the OP, as long as the lake isn’t too busy with boats, I’m not seeing a problem. I guess theoretically you could randomly loose consciousness and drown, as a previous poster suggested, but again, I’ve never passed out and see this a as an extremely remote possibility not worth worrying about.
I never ever get cramps. Except the time I started taking a prescription that gave me severe cramps. Would have hated to discover this while swimming. I figured that my heart was nothing but a muscle that would be fatal if it cramped up so I stopped taking the medicine. 1 month later it was pulled from the market due to deaths caused by heart attacks.
When assessing risk the likelihood has to be weighed against the consequences. If the lake is 12 feet deep you can bob your way back to shore. I did that before when I got tired while swimming in the ocean. I swam out to a reef that was 4 feet deep but the space between was over my head. When I got tired I just sank down and sprang forward. I guess I was lucky that I was too young and stupid to panic.
I fly an airplane and have run my fuel down to the minimum level on a trip before. Not much of a risk unless you consider fuel drains often leak and fuel gauges are more decoration than information. I flew at 11,000 feet and monitored every airport along the way. I monitored the calculated en route time on the GPS looking for a change in headwinds. I drained the secondary tank dry so that all my remaining fuel was in a non-porting tank. And finally, I approached my destination airport in a landing pattern with the engine to idle in case I lost it on final so the landing was already set up for an engine failure. I took steps to mitigate my risk because most fatal accidents in aviation are the result of a series of events that went badly.
Taking steps to increase the margin of safety just makes sense. Anything could happen in a lake including a strike by a boat. A brightly colored vest would help visibility as well as provide flotation if needed.
Since you say you’re a strong swimmer I’ll take you at your word. If you’ve done it before then it shouldn’t be a problem for you. The biggest risk for you would be any boaters out there not seeing you. Other then that I don’t see any problems. I wish there were places around here I could do some open water swimming. There have been people arrested in the DC area because people are so afraid of someone drowning there are no places to swim.
Allow me to wring my hands a bit.
I’m a mediocre swimmer, so the idea of a swimming a mile in open water is disturbing.
The worse cramp I ever had while swimming came right after my infant daughter fell into the pool next to me and I was pulling her back to the pool’s edge. (There were lots of people there and no real danger, but it spooked me…)
Last summer I got caught in a rip tide for the first time. I’d always assumed I could float n’ bob indefinitely, but the breakers made it impossible. After a minute I yelled for help, but no one could do anything. Eventually my foot scrapped the bottom and I staggered ashore.
Obviously there are no rip tides in a lake, but unexpected stuff happens. Suppose you get tired and eight speed boats pass in front of you and leave you stalled or going backwards?
Really I’d feel better if you had some sort of emergency plan. An inflatable device strapped to your back? I don’t know…
End of hand wringing.
Back to those triathaletes …
FWIW, the sites that advise folks on training do say this
And there is this
So maybe there is something to their worries after all.
Are you swimming in Nicaragua?
I’ve thought about this a lot because we have a place on a very cold, deep lake. I won’t swim if no one is on shore (not that they could help if I was far out) but if I wanted to I would get one of those floaty things that lifeguards drag behind them for rescues. It wouldn’t impede your swimming but would be there for an emergency.
I think I would most likely drown if a water snake started attacking me. Or a big slimy fish.
Have you thought about swimming with a lifeguard rescue tube? You can hook the leash to your ankle and just drag the thing along behind you. That way if you cramp up or something comes up, you can pull the thing in and just float. I have seen solo open water swimmers do this.
Link to an example rescue tube.
ETA: On preview, curse you SP2263!
Yesterday (Saturday, Oct. 3) the St. Petersburg newspaper had an obituary about a guy who did this and that and was a star at everything; when he retired, he moved into a self designed house on a lake in the Tampa area. Among his other all star performances, he was a long distance swimmer who frequently swam from one side of the lake to the other “closely followed by alligators.” He died at home, surrounded by family members. Surely the OP ought to be able to survive a cross-lake swim; he is probably not closely followed by alligators.
The guy I’m talking about maybe was an all star but I just can’t consider him as smart.
The majority of triathletes are not very good swimmers. I’m not including the best of them, but the amateur ones are not the best swimmers. When I read about them they don’t like to train for the swimming portion and just want to get it over with. There was a thread about triathletes on a swimming board and the deaths a few months ago. I know the swimmers concluded that the non swimmers were skewing the results on deaths during triathlons.
Quite frankly I’m with GusNSpot, if you feel you can do it then do it. Don’t let others fears drive you from it. I did a two mile swim over the summer. I had signed up for the three mile swim, couldn’t do it at all, it took me the time it would have taken me to do three miles to do the full two. I was in water 30-50+ feet deep and while there were others around no one was watching me, it didn’t bother me at all even though I was cramping, tired, and unable to swim. I was used to swimming so I didn’t let it get to me. If the OP is the same way then the odds of something going bad are not that great. Do you swim and let them worry about themselves.
On a lake that small, large waves and undertows are impossible. Likewise, troublesome currents aren’t likely unless there is a dam or river involved. I would worry more about boats.
You could drown if you fall asleep in mid-crossing.
Now Lake Michigan, that’s a different story. I am not a strong swimmer, and once almost drowned in big waves, after falling off a jetski, when swirling water patterns made it impossible to swim to shore. The wave noise was so great that the people on shore watching me couldn’t hear my cries for help less than 200 ft away. I eventually got free from the current or I wouldn’t be writing this today.
I think your recollection of the temperatures is incorrect (maybe the thermometer you had was broken), or you didn’t stay in continuously for as long as you think. I’ve never gone swimming in 45 degree water, but I have in 50 degree water, and it’s damn cold. I only spent about 10 minutes in it and I was ready to lie on some sunbaked rocks for a while to warm back up. I have no doubt that if I’d stayed 30 minutes, I’d have been full-body shivering and seriously low core temperature by the end of it.
I seriously doubt that you could stay in 45F water continuously for hours.
I do remember checking the water temperature on weather reports when I swam because I was curious about it. The coldest water I’ve ever swam in was 37 degrees, and that was a very primal “holy crap GET OUT NOW” reaction. I do remember water in the upper 40s not having the same effect. I may not have spent “hours” in the water at 45-50. I do recall specifically though that 55f was about the point where I felt like I could remain in the water indefinitely, and that I’d spent several hours in the water at that temperature.