Wetlook World Forum

Message # 23931.1

Subject: Re: Story: A long swim

Date: Sun 30/07/06 20:36:43 GMT

Name: sjakie

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By WetMartina - wetmartina@sonnenkinder.org Sun 30/07/06 14:04:10 GMT

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I arrived without any special incident, no puddles on the way, no rain out of the blue, only merciless burning sun. But what did I found? The beach was almost overcrowded. Relatively, I mean: On normal day there maybe is a couple of people every hundred meters, and that's okay for me. In that case I feel enough privacy to play in the water, I'm only visible from far away enough (and if I take off my glasses all the other people disappear <g>). But today they all must have signed an agreement to be all there at exactly the same time. The average distance between groups seemed to be ten meters only. Well, I know, I could have had a swim even under that circumstances. It's not forbidden, nobody would call the Polizei (unless I would look and behave like a suicide candidate, of course). But no, it's not my cup of tea to perform public wetlook with all these men and women staring at me (I know they would) and solicitously shaking their heads. Say it in one word? Shyness.

Of course, they all had the right to come out there, it was a real hot day. I had no problem with the people, I had one with me. Secretly I had the hope that  the Formula One circus most of them trussed to their TVs, but no, there was no comparison with the football world cup some weeks ago when the beach was completely empty. Now, should I bike back home? No. As it happens sometime (rarely enough) I had an idea. It wouldn't completely isolate me from the crowd but at least reduce the exposure time significantly.

I went some more hundred meters downstream, leaned my bicycle against one of the big signposts that mark the river kilometres for the ships every hundred meter. I locked the bike, wrote the number the sign said with a ball pen onto my left palm. I left my change of clothes there, took my key ring with me and started a walk at the way in upstream direction.

I always wanted to swim a long distance without investing too much power, without the need to return to where the swim started. Now today was the day. The water height was almost 2 meters below normal, the river was narrower and slower than usual, and the edge was much more flat. People had to go 30 or more metres until the water was waist deep for them.

I walked about 3 kilometres upstream, passed a private property built directly at the river with it's “Zutritt verboten” sign, and a  zone with man-high growing stinging nettles and thistles that hide the beach there. How would it look like from the river side? Eventually I arrived where I wanted to start my swim. The problem I did not yet think about was: How to I get into the water here? It was still a sandy beach, with apparently more people sunbathing than anywhere else. The only way seemed to ignore them all (and my inhibition). And really, it was not as difficult as I thought. I went in without looking back, and finally did a jump and started to swim when the water was deep enough. At this point, I dared to look back, and almost no one seemed to care about me. Just one older man was swimming near me and he asked if he could help me, but I smiled at him and said that I was very very well and now wanted to swim back to where I came from. He wished me much fun, said that he now understood why I went in with all my clothes and with glasses and he regretted that he could not come along. Nice guy.

I floated along and it was a beautiful experience. The water was so warm and soft, and I could see so many places I never was before. At the weedy zone was a beach, too, but if the water height becomes normal again it would be away. So that would be a secret tip only for low water conditions. The river side of the property I mentioned looks quite unimaginative, it mainly consists of a wall.

I met a lot of people with paddle boats, we all smiled and were happy to be on or in the water at such a heat. Even some people from the beaches wave when I floated along. Suddenly the world was much nicer than two hours ago.

Eventually I reached the point where I started from. After all, the note on my palm was not necessary to find it, it just made me saver. I emerged from the water and entered the beach dripping wet. I thought I would come away without being bothered, but no, a man – type Blockwart - came and indeed asked me directly why I would swim in clothes. I was tempted to answer with a simple “Fuck off!” (and it would have been the right answer, I know), but I remembered I belong to the kind sort of people and I explained that I swam a long distance, and that clothes protect from stones in the flat water, I even think I said something about ozone hole and UV radiation (his skin was quite red <g>), and I ended with “but the main thing is: it's fun”. Perhaps my flood of words overwhelmed him, perhaps he didn't understand much of all these things. He shook his head, mumbled something I think meant “Women!”, and he went away.

One silly bloke can't spoil my day. I unlocked my bike and went home wet. Still too many people to change clothes, and still hot enough  It was a beautiful day again with a complete new experience.

Enjoy the water.