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Gals caught bobbing in Big Apple

By THANE BURNETT, TORONTO SUN

A pair of Ontario girlfriends have made more of a splash in New York City than they could ever have expected. Extensive coverage, including a front page, in the local daily papers. Helicopters watching overhead.

A police escort through Gotham.

And all for taking an afternoon swim Monday in the restricted Central Park reservoir.

These are nervous days in America, when everything could be tied to terrorism. Even bobbing in the Big Apple.

Apparently on a whim, Deirdre Barkhouse, 26, and Analise Spencer, 18, who both live in Niagara Falls, decided the mammoth 43-hectare reservoir -- circled by a huge fence, and a protected source of drinking water -- was too good to pass up on a hot day. So they took the plunge.

That's when they were suddenly over their heads, with the New York Post blaring on its front page: "Central Park Swim Babes Busted."

"They thought they were terrorists," explains Deirdre's mom, Linda Barkhouse, from her Niagara Falls home.

"They took it very seriously. Helicopters in the air and scuba divers in the water."

The inside headline in the New York Post yesterday read "Two Hot Chicks Take Dip," while the New York Daily News posted the story under "All Wet Eh!"

"This is not going in her baby book," says Barkhouse's exasperated mom, who yesterday still hadn't been called by her wet-behind-the-ears daughter. But New York media had her phone ringing off the hook.

And she wasn't happy with the international notoriety of her only child, saying Deirdre should have a red behind to go with her red face after setting off New York terrorism fears.

"You would have thought she would have known better," Linda said of her daughter.

The pals apparently scaled the chest-high, wrought-iron fence which circles the reservoir. With their clothes on, they jumped in with both feet, and began to head out about 90 metres, happily doing the breaststroke, with even their hats still on.

"All of a sudden, somebody next to me said, 'Look! Somebody's in the water! Somebody's in the water!" eyewitness, Alberto Arroyo, 88, a retiree who was walking around the 12-metre-deep Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir, was quoted as saying. "I saw two heads in the water. They were in their shoes, all dressed up."

Police say they had a difficult time getting the women to hear their warnings to come out.

"We don't think they meant any harm -- just swimming in total, ignorant bliss," one New York cop told The Toronto Sun.

Both were arrested -- amid a sea of media cameras -- and charged with criminal trespass. After spending the night in custody, they were apparently released back into the wilds of New York yesterday. The New York Post reported that when led away, both Canadians said taking an afternoon swim in a public lake on their side of the border isn't against the law. With dripping sneakers and shirts, they were taken in handcuffs from the Central Park precinct to a court appearance. "I'm sorry," Barkhouse apparently said after she and her swim pal were scooped up.

And with those very Canadian words, our country's naval invasion of New York, New York, came to a dramatic, and drip-dry end.