Salt Water Swim
Even though the Tuesday ride was rained out (my magic does occasionally fail), I went over to Sylva anyway. I wanted to meet Kent, the owner, and talk to him about options for a sturdier daily commute bike. Whether it ends up being a cross bike, urban commuter, hardtail mountain bike, or other, I still don’t know. About the only thing I found was that there are an ever expanding number of choices. Seems like every company has doubled the number of models and the variety of options is endless.
Oddly though, the thing we talked about more than riding… and bikes, was swimming… and pools.
As I was checking out various catalogues and we were drooling over all kinds of groovy things, Kent’s wife and daughter came in, as it was almost time for her 6pm swim class over at WCU. He mentioned that although he did not know the specifics, he had heard that they were now letting non-faculty/students use the facility. I had pretty much ruled out the best facility in the area, Waynesville Rec, because it’s just a bit too far away to be worth the drive – 50 miles roundtrip. Even WCU/Cullowhee is close to 40 miles total. So I mentioned that my only option given my dislike of driving seemed to be the Cherokee Life Center.
He told me something I had already heard, that they keep the water warm. But then he told me something I hadn’t heard, and had never heard of… they use salt water in the pool. I guess it’s a sodium based cleaning system instead of chlorine. That was intruguing.
My immediate first question was… will I be more buoyant and be able to keep my legs from dragging the bottom? And secondarily.. just how salty is the salt? Is it going to taste horrible and dry out my lips and mouth?
Thursday morning I finally went and found out. It was the third day of heavy rain, so I ended up driving, but at least this is only 10 miles total. Short doesn’t mean fast though, as it takes seemingly hours to get through Cherokee each time. I think riding would actually be faster. That place is nuts.
So I paid my $3 for a single day session and went into the pool. There were a couple dozen kids playing around quite a few of them in the lap lane. Along with being littered with floaty toys and kickboards. I wasn’t to thrilled to have to shoo them out, but the second I walked in, the guard on duty asked if I was there to do laps, and then did the shooing for me. Cool.
I’ve been feeling a little bit of an outsider the past few weeks, which I had been prepared for and which will obviously fade over time. However, going into places within the Cherokee reservation is more like being a total foreigner. So I was glad that the guard was friendly and accomodating.
When I dipped my toe in the water, I was surprised and yet not surprised to find that the water was very warm. I had been told it would be, but I wasn’t expecting it to be bath water warm! Weird. If I were doing serious efforts, rather than just mildly interested in endurance, this might be a problem. But for my purposes I think it will be fine.
As for the salt water, I immediately noticed the difference in buoyancy. Not exactly like wearing a wetsuit, but my legs required a lot less kicking. At the same time, I was pleased to find out that the water didn’t taste strongly of salt. In fact, it’s barely perceptable. I swam nearly a full mile – 1600. I forgot until afterwards that I shorted myself. I gotta get used to swimming in yards instead of meters. Although time is probably more important than distance.
So… I’m still curious to find out about swimming on campus but my first swim at CLC was good. And since I went Thursday I opted to skip Saturday and will try to make it a couple days during the workweek.
