The
long-polluted New York rivers are
getting cleaner, but can still be dangerous to swim in. There are
efforts underway to clean up the Bronx River, but that will take years, if not decades. Until then,
signs are posted, warning would-be swimmers, yet people still risk sickness to battle the heat. One current safe solution is
the Floating Pool Lady, a barge that was remade into an 82-foot-long city parks department swimming pool.
She first arrived in the Bronx in 2008, and
she'll return to the Bronx in a week. There's a new Big Idea to bring swimmers back into the rivers:
the +Pool, a floating swimming pool located within a river, designed with a series exterior walls to filter the river water and make it safe to swim in. While that's in the early design stages, you can take a chance and
jump in a swimming hole.
posted by filthy light thief
on Jun 24, 2011 -
26 comments
Marine Safety Specialist Mario Vittone
knows what it looks like when someone is drowning, and you probably don't. It's deceptively quiet, undramatic, and happens so fast that bystanders may not even know it's happening. A drowning person's brain kicks into an instinctive mode that prevents yelling for help.
posted by ivey
on Jul 6, 2010 -
68 comments
"Of the four strokes swum in competition, butterfly is almost universally regarded as more exhausting than freestyle, breaststroke or backstroke. And therein lies its allure.
In an age of ultramarathons, Ironman triathlons and crowds chugging up Mount Everest,
long-distance butterfly swimming is becoming a new and less-crowded frontier for fitness fanatics."
[more inside]
posted by emilyd22222
on Jun 3, 2010 -
37 comments
Oh, deer. "The catching was slow and they looked back to check their lines. They saw what appeared to be a seal with its snout out of the water, but they didn't think any seals were around their fishing grounds and they kept watching."
posted by mr_crash_davis
on Oct 20, 2007 -
73 comments
Tracks of Swimming Dinosaur found in Wyoming The tracks of a previously unknown, two-legged swimming dinosaur have been identified along the shoreline of an ancient inland sea that covered Wyoming 165 million years ago, according to a University of Colorado at Boulder graduate student.
posted by hostile7
on Oct 19, 2005 -
15 comments
Surfrider is a nonprofit environmental organization that produces a annual
"State of the Beach" (explanation
here) report with information about US beach access (public access and private ownership issues), water quality, beach erosion, surfing, links and more. Reports are available for
Hawaii,
West Coast,
Gulf States,
Southeast,
Mid Atlantic,
Puerto Rico,
Northeast and
Great Lakes.
In-depth
Water Quality reports for beaches in CA, HI, TX, AL, and parts of FL, as well as results of beach water testing conducted by (or sanctioned by)
Surfrider Chapters are also available.
There are also Surfrider chapters in:
Australia,
Brazil, Canada (no website),
Europe and
Japan.
EPA: Beaches is also an excellent resource for information about the condition of US beaches.
[via LII New This Week]
posted by mlis
on Jun 5, 2005 -
7 comments
The Tao of Skinny-Dipping. [nytimes reg required]
After long days spent defending their positions atop New York's most competitive fields, Manhattan's alpha males need to unwind. From mistresses to treadmills, these men have as many forms of relaxation as sources of stress. But some of the city's titans have a secret. They meet around private pools in private clubs and swim together, naked.
posted by jba
on Apr 28, 2005 -
27 comments
The End of the Deep End. Citing safety reasons, North American cities
are abolishing the standard public swimming pool that many of us grew up with. The deep ends of existing pools are being filled in, and new pools are being built shallower. Is this action too extreme, or are deep ends a real threat to public safety? (via
Manifesto Multilinko)
posted by sanitycheck
on Jul 14, 2003 -
51 comments
Swimming the Columbia River - lengthwise. What have you been up to for the past week? How about the next 6 months? If you're Christopher Swain, the answer is "swimming - and lots of it". Swain plans swim the 1,243 miles of the
Columbia River from headwaters to the Pacific over about 180 days. The further downriver he goes, the riskier it gets - aside from the rapids and ocean freighters that await him, he'll be in waters contaminated by atomic waste, PCBs and other toxins - which is the point of the swim, to raise awareness and support for river protection. "I learned that tasting every mile of a river is a great way to build the credibility to speak on its behalf"
posted by kokogiak
on Jun 11, 2002 -
15 comments
Underwater rugby? "An air-filled ball is not suitable for underwater games, since they are bouyant and always return to the surface. For this reason, Bersuda filled the ball with salt-water. Since the density of the ball was now greater than that of normal water, it no longer floated to the surface, but slowly sank to the bottom. The sink rate could, within certain limits, be controlled by the concentration of the salt solution. The first underwater ball was invented." Apparently, it's big in
Switzerland (located east or south of Germany). Anyone else know anything about it?
posted by tippiedog
on Oct 5, 2001 -
5 comments
Tourists swimming with the fishes... Ok, more accurately swimming with sharks. Summer is coming and with it my little coastal town is starting to endure the first surges of tourist crowds. With the changing of the seasons comes the eternal question, just what can you convince tourists to spend money on? I live in great white shark country so it's unlikely that this particular tourist activity will take off locally. However, we have had problems with commercial shark chummers in the past.
posted by rdr
on Apr 15, 2001 -
8 comments
Coach Touretski Suspended Over Steroids Charge - Leading swimming coach Gennadi Touretski has been suspended from the Australian Institute of Sport following allegations of illegal possession of anabolic steroids.
This is very big news here in Australia at the moment.
posted by Jase_B
on Apr 10, 2001 -
5 comments
Equatorial Guinea has a new swimming star: 22-year-old Eric Moussambani. He won his heat in the 100m freestyle,
despite never having learned how to swim at all until January, and having never even raced more than 50m before this race. His winning time: 1:52.72. Since that's about a minute more than it takes most Olympians, it should be noted here that his two competitors had been disqualified for false states, so he had the pool to himself. You really need to see the video of him "swimming" to believe it. But it's obvious that Sydney now has its own Eddie "the Eagle" Edwards!
posted by aaron
on Sep 19, 2000 -
8 comments
