True. Most of the people who think that swimming in the Finger Lakes is just like swimming in a swimming pool survive the experience. But a few of them drown every year.
(Yes, you can swim safely in these lakes – if you know what you’re doing. And the problem is mostly ignorance, on two levels – they don’t know what they don’t know, and so didn’t know they needed to find out.)
I’m curious. What extra precautions does one need to take when swimming in the Finger Lakes?
So “unknown unknowns?” This is the one thing that I had always thought the Rumsfeld was unfairly ragged on about.
I bet you’re supposed to avoid the middle one.
Hypothermia. Water up north has to be cold almost year around. Unless you’re just really close to shore, I can’t imagine trying to swim up there except in high summer
I’m curious too. I mean, I’ve swum in lakes and there are various things to be aware of - rocks and wildlife and unexpected dropoffs and so forth - is there something unique to the Finger Lakes we should know about? Alligators? Aquatic cryptids? Rednecks on jetskis?
Oh, well, that’s boring. But a good tip nonetheless.
The water may be very cold immediately below the surface; and there may be strong currents in some areas. Also the depth may change abruptly, so that one might be in water shallow enough to stand in at one point, but in way over one’s head a step or two further out.
And if a storm comes up – which may happen fairly rapidly, we get sporadic thunderstorms which can have high winds – the surface can become very rough.
If you’re not a very strong swimmer and prepared for cold water, stay in the shallows, including knowing where that dropoff is, and being aware that currents may pull you out past that point. If you’re going further out, wear a life jacket, and have a boat watching out for you – people swim across the lake occasionally, but the ones doing it right do so with a follow boat.
The most recent drowning was somebody who jumped off a boat in the middle of the lake, and never got back to the boat; a considerable search did turn up the body several days later. (Some of the bodies have never been found – one poor family kept funding private searches, long after the official rescue people had given up, including IIRC a couple in following years. They still didn’t find him.) I don’t know what the specific cause was in that case, though the news did say the person wasn’t wearing a life jacket, and was from out of town. My guess is they went into shockingly cold water (especially on one of the first warm days in spring! but it can be very cold beneath the surface even in August) and were pulled away from the boat by a current; and that they probably hadn’t been expecting either the cold or the current.
Yeah, me too. That quote made perfect sense to me; and it really is an important thing to be aware of.
Not unique – all issues, I’d presume, with any large lake; just like current is an issue with any river.
ETA about rivers: in another state entirely, I got my lesson on that one, luckily in a survivable situation. Spent the summer on a site adjacent to a not very large river, much of it not very deep; we routinely waded and swam in the shallow areas. One day I lost my footing – and I couldn’t get it back; the current had me and was pulling me along; and although it didn’t look like much current from the surface, it was a whole lot stronger than I was. I eventually managed to get my feet under me, with only some minor scrapes from being banged along shallower bits of the bottom; but I’ve been a whole lot more respectful of rivers ever since.
Not surprising. Those lakes are deep, and cooooold…
My grandpa lived on a small lake in Wisconsin. It was spring-fed, so the incoming water didn’t even get any sunlight like a lake-that’s-part-of-a-river would.
The sun did warm the top three or four feet of water, but below your knees it was frigid, even in August.
That’s what the one fellar said.
Or flood waters running over a road. “Hey, looks like it’s only a foot or so deep; we can drive right through it and… OH SHIT!”
Oh yeah. Anything that might have a current in it – be careful!
I think he was from Arkansas. Get it?
We get a lot of flash flooding in the Houston area and it still amazes how many people in the area don’t know the basic guidelines for running water.
The rule of thumb is 6 inches (about the length of a large phone) of running water can knock a human being down. A foot of running water can float/carry most cars, and 2 feet or more can carry off pickups and SUVs. It doesn’t look like especially deep water but it doesn’t take a lot, either.
I have no doubts at all even a shallow river can render a human being helpless.
I’m on the shore of Lake Michigan and it’s not uncommon to see PSAs on riptides from time to time. Essentially, anytime there’s a drowning (or near drowning), the news will drop little 30 second blurbs here and there for the next few days about what to do if you’re caught in one.
I’m still astounded at how lucky I was. We’d go swimming in Lake Michigan, and even rented a cabin on the shore.
Once I was by myself and an undertow took me. “Took”, as in grabbed me like a dog’s chew toy and whipped me down to the bottom and out to sea at high speed.
I still vividly remember the ride, and thinking “Okay, I have lungs full of air, I’m a good swimmer, and if I don’t panic this could be fun.”
And it was! After a minute or so I felt it let go, and I bobbed up a mile or so from where I’d been swimming. And thought “Well, now I have to pay for that roller coaster ride…” as I swam back.
To this day, I can’t explain why I wasn’t terrified, or even felt like it was a big deal. I hadn’t even thought of it in decades, until the Lake Michigan comment here.
Every year this time of year up here in Western Washington, there are warnings about the warm days and the cold water. And every year, people jump into or fall into cold water and drown.
Coming back to this bit –
No alligators; at least, unless somebody’s very recently dumped one in there. (At any rate, I don’t think so; they can apparently stand colder water than I thought, at least for a while. But I haven’t seen any reports, and I doubt they’d survive well in any sort of long run.)
At least two of the lakes have had cryptids reported; but, while you might come across a papier-mache or other human-made version during a festival, I wouldn’t worry about meeting any actual cryptids (not that I suppose you were.)
There are certainly jetskis, more on some lakes and in some areas of the lakes than on/in others; some of them undoubtedly driven by rednecks, some by people very definitely not rednecks. Probably more to the issue is that some of them are driven by people who know and care what they’re doing and others, um, not. There are legal requirements for training etc. for driving any motorboat, jetskis included, in New York State; and there is some enforcement; but enforcement is sometimes after the fact of an accident, so that is indeed another issue to be aware of.
Oh yes – if you are bringing a boat into any of the lakes, clean the damn thing off and out really well first, bilge included. We have way too many invasives in these lakes already, we don’t want any more.
On quite a few occasions, I’ve found myself using:
The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
[His saying about the failure to find WMDs in Iraq]
But … FWIW … I’ve felt extremely dirty afterward.
This makes me think of the people that insist on going out on the piers and get washed off. This happens every year several times no matter how many warnings on the news, or psa’s. Lake Michigan that is.