“Swimming in the Wind”

October 7, 2010

By Caciques Louise Shiverick and Tucker Beckett

We woke up this morning for our long workout of the week. This workout is usually on Saturdays, but we had to reschedule because we are going to participate in the four mile Wemyss Bight homecoming race this Saturday. Swim track ran in the rain against the high intensity winds, to the triangle cut to swim laps. As we rounded the final corner, we glimpsed the epic size of the tumbling waves for the first time. Nevertheless, we balanced on the rocks to jump into the water that was as cold as bath water that’s been sitting out for a day to start our warm ups. After we were finally nice and toasty, we began the mile swim that was ahead of us. Each breath that we tried to take was stifled by a crashing cold wave smashing into our faces. Then it was off to the boathouse for another round of 8-minute abs. And thus passes another morning of swim track.

Swim track wasn’t the only thing that was affected by the weather. In Marine Ecology we had a planned SCUBA dive to Deal’s Point, but instead we had to go free diving at Jack’s Bay. We piled into the vans in our swimsuits, toting our snorkel gear behind us. It was just as breathtakingly beautiful as the last time we had been there, at the end of orientation. With sand soft as a tempurpedic mattress, we stumbled into our fins and tripped our way into the water, quite literally. We saw brain coral, sea rods, schools of small fish, yellowtail snapper, hogfish, and plenty more of the bright colorful fish that grace the water of the Bahamas. Even though it was too bad that our dive was cancelled, it was still a really fun snorkel.