Last Lap in the Lake
You have to brace yourself to swim in a Swiss lake most of the year. In June, when summer temps lure people to the beaches around Geneva, the lake is still frigid with snowmelt from nearby mountains. But in July and August, the water can be warm enough to bask in it for hours at a time.
Mont Blanc in the distance.
Once you’re in it, it’s pure bliss. You lose track of time and don’t try to gauge distances when you can do long languid strokes without bumping into anyone. And there’s always something to see when you raise your head to breathe: a glimpse of Mont Blanc towering over other Alps on the far side of the lake or the green flanks of the Jura Mountains, with sail boats drifting by on the horizon. I did a lot of back stroking in the lake since it’s so hypnotic to look around at the landscape.
The only downside is that you have to contend with duck fleas (aka puce de canard). I had the reaction that many people get to the harmless parasites: a few itchy red bumps on my exposed flesh. It only affects swimmers in certain parts of the lake—where banks are shallow and ducks and geese congregate–and the reaction generally fades after a few days. I didn’t let it deter me. I learned to rub my skin vigorously with a towel as soon as I get out of the water, then take a soapy shower and hope for the best.
Brrrrrrr!
I bought a wet suit to prolong the outdoor swim season, but it only gave me an extra month at the beginning and end of the summer. I could venture into the lake a few weeks earlier in June and later in September, although the wetsuit didn’t protect my extremities. Cold water forced me to kick harder and paddle fast to keep hands and feet from freezing.
It was a sad day when I had to hang up my wetsuit and give up open-air swimming. The rest of the year I’d have to go farther to find less-crowded pools to swim in. Ferney-Voltaire across the French border wasn’t too far, and I’d try to get there early enough to avoid the lunch-hour speed demons.
With a warm sun and air temperatures in the upper-20s C (80 degrees F) the first weekend in October, I braced myself for one last lap in the lake even though the water was a frigid 17 degrees Celsius (or 62 F).
— Published by Hello Switzerland in October 2013