Do you like swimming for exercise?

Yeah, I totally understand.

I can understand. My dad doesn't swim either, for the same reason as you, but didn't mind taking me into the water as a young kid just for fun. I actually took swimming lessons at the same pool I go to now when I was around 6-years-old.

I'd encourage you to try and learn to swim. It's not so hard. Plus one of the best exercise and fun too. However, do you at least like being in the water for enjoyment?

Our public city pool is kept pretty clean and well maintained. It is actually salt water based, but still uses some chlorine. Yes, users are supposed to shower before getting into the pool, and most do follow that rule. You should also shower after getting out to rinse the chlorine smell, and wash up. I do both. Still just waiting for our public pool to reopen from the virus stuff. Hopefully very soon, but with safety too.

Thank you Nightwolf.

Actually I did try lessons, several years ago now, but gave up after eight months of making no progress.

It took me all my strength to stay on the surface; ;and I could reach the far end of the pool only by staying in the lane next to the side where I could rest by holding the rim with my feet on a little ledge. Sometimes I made the full length back in one go, helped by having identified a feature in the room opposite where I could stand up if necessary; but by the last few yards whatever stroke I'd tried using had gone to pot.

There were two groups of other swimmers in the class; and I envied them both, especially when I realised I could never  be as good as them. They were all very encouraging to me though.

The first group, in the lanes next to me, were three or four women who had learnt to swim well, and you could call "improvers" able to swim two or four lengths without stopping.  

The others, on the far side, were several men who could and did swim hard and fast, sometime making the water quite choppy. They would typically swim four or more lengths with full racing turns at the deep end, gliding a third of the way back submerged before surfacing to breathe and charge back to the shallow end. Then they'd stop for a rest and chat amongst themselves for ten  minutes or so before going for it again. 


I like being in the water, and I can swim rather inelegantly, in salt water, for ten yards or so before I have to rest. So I either wade out into the sea to about chest deep and swim back in, or swim parallel to the shore in water a little over waist-deep. It depends on the nature of the beach and how well I know it. My natural stroke is a vague blend of side-crawl and doggy-paddle, nothing "proper", but it works.  None of this take a breath and swim fifty yards face-down stuff. 

Ah I see. Hey at least you gave it your best go. It's not for everyone, we are all good at different things. At least you enjoy the water. You can still use a pool for enjoyment of course, lots of people just enjoy getting in, even if for the shallow end for relaxation and fun.

I took swim lessons as a boy when I was about 6 years of age, and at the very same pool I go to now as an adult. I became good at it, but no, I am not a professional swimmer by any means. Good enough for exercise and enjoyment.

Thank you!

Yes, that swimming just for exercise and enjoyment is what I would like, too.

Some twenty years ago now I suppose, I sometimes needed to be part of a small team working away from base. In one place we stayed was a large leisure-centre with full-length pool, and while the others would happily swim full double lengths I noted the limit of my depth (by landmark, such a particular feature on the wall), and would just swim a few times back and forth in that.  

Once, on holiday with friends in France, some of us visited a local swimming-pool. I discovered it had no shallow end though, so could really only wallow around the ladder in the less-deep corner. 

 

  Like you, I was one of those instant sink-to-bottom-of-the-pool people when I took swimming lessons as a youngster. More than one instructor told me that I simply wasn’t buoyant.  Fast-forward to age 18 when I joined the Marine Corps. As a sea service, the inability to swim was unacceptable, and Drill Instructor are vastly different than YMCA swimming instructors. There’s something in the military called basis survival swimming; one doesn’t need to be an Olympic competitor, but being able to survive in a combat situation is a must. Survival swimming requires starting out in full gear, uniform, weapon, pack, helmet, etc. Getting rid of some of the gear is authorized so that its weight won’t drag you down or so that straps or other pieces of equipment don’t hinder arms, legs and breathing. Also, certain pieces of equipment can be turned into improvised floatation devices or paddling devices. Basic survival in the water means remaining afloat until rescue arrives or moving to ship/shore unassisted. It took me about five attempts at qualifying, but I finally did it. 

  After boot camp, about six years into my service, the first instance of recalling on basic survival swimming came about when I was stationed in Okinawa, Japan and my unit, a company of about 150 men, was on an amphibious training exercise. We had to simulate that the landing craft were hit by enemy fire or had mechanical failure and we had to bail out and attack from the water 200 meters out. My platoon (about fifty men) was divided up into groups of four to six men depending on swimming ability. Each smaller group had at least half its men who were strong swimmers. At a signal from the Navy coxswain, we went over the side and hit the water, oriented ourselves toward land and started moving. We all made it to shore, and it was a real eye-opener as far as how much more difficult it would have been if real enemy fire was coming in at the same time as all of that.
~

There is no way at al I could ever have been in any of the Services! I'd have been as useless to them as they would to me.

I have tested it several times, including in the swimming-lessons I took (see my reply to Nightwolf), and proved I cannot float.

I remember once reading quite a number of men drowned during the Normandy Landings, especially on D-Day itself, thanks to jumping in from landing-craft that had dropped their ramps too far out.

I have also a description in a book on an entirely different subject, of something you'd probably at least heard about, developed by the USAAF during the Korean War. I think it was called "drown-proofing", but entailed floating upright, a position that submerges you completely. By pushing down with our arms you come up for a breath, then relax again. Apparently you can survive for a long time like that - though of course that was in relatively warm tropical sea, not the North Atlantic, and it probably helped not to think of what sharks might be about, or that there were three miles of water below your toes.