OK, one of my "regrets" in life. not learning to be a better swimmer.
 

DAMN. i can swim, but my friends describe what i do as "not drowning". not strong, not durable. i get invited to do cool water stuff all the time, but i am not that comfortable with the ocean. well, swimming in it.

abalone diving, and spear fishing...are two huge ones for me. i get invited all the time, and i dont go. my good friend just emailed me this picture of him and a "fish". cool stuff, but im better on terra ferma.

i'm going bowhunting tomorrow to make myself feel better ;). my friend justin is a fish.

check it out! sorry picture is very small. it is a seabass.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1271539157.jpg

here bigger pics

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1271539550.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1271539585.jpg

I'm with you Vash. Although I'm a good swimmer I'm not getting in the water with critters bigger than I am. Love the beach and do chill on shore and in the waves but 'in' the H2O nada.
I think it's paranoia more than anything. You can't get out. Hell even in the woods you can run, may get caught but you can still run!!

All i see in those pix is a couple different species and flavors of shark food. ;)

I can swim, but only average at best. As is well known here, the ocean is not my thing. (really the icky salty feel after you get out is pretty nasty to me)

Surfed and river kayaked most of my life...the first time I did any serious snorkeling was in the Maldives in the Indian Ocean. The water is as clear as a fall sunrise, ribbons of light many meters off the reef face.

I snorkeled the reef and the reef face: the amount and array of big fish in the water was astounding, intimidating. I never got comfortable and stayed off the reef face the final few days. I felt like I was swimming in a aquarium and was being watched.

I am a very good swimmer, the big fish swim better.

LOL, It's better than going to like Lake Michigan and smelling like you're in a vat of pussy!

LOL!!!!!!

You, my friend, have a way with words.

One of the things that turned me off to the ocean as a kid was stepping on the Horseshoe crabs that are all over at the Jersey Shore points so many times.

I don't like stepping on living things that i cannot see. Like paul said, it's a bit unsettling.

Doing a triathlon brought my love of swimming to a new low. There's something about paying to swim in a freezing lake with a hundred other people who have no problem kicking me in the face, not to mention all the hours training in the pool. I love running & biking, swimming is a challenge.

I'm from and grew up on the gulf coast of Florida. I'm not the guy to go out and swim laps, but I'm pretty darn comfy in the water whether it's a pool or the ocean. Despite that, I hate to step on something under the water than I can't see. Lakes are even worse than the ocean, all of that plant growth on the bottom.

Uh - Lakes a way too squishy on the bottom for me.

I am also from and grew up on the gulf coast of Florida. Years in the gulf, years in the atlantic, years in the pacific (now) - I prefer the Gulf every day of the week and twice on sunday.

Whenever I fly into my dad's in Clearwater I feel like I'm flying home and I've never even lived there. When I was a kid we lived near eglin afb - Ft. Walton Beach. I will never forget how wonderful those 10 years were.

That pretty much sums me up too.

I swim better since I lost the cyclist legs. Swam well as a kid, in college got into cycling and got the thighs bigger than the waist syndrome. Tended to sink too much, muscle does not float very well. Swim better with normal sized legs. When I had the sub 5% body fat I could not float worth a damn, my fat ass floats fine now.

You guys that are afraid of the ocean are a bit silly. You have to die from something, and you are a lot more likely to die not wearing a seatbelt than being shark food

Dont have to be a strong swimmer to dive or snorkle. I am not what I would call a strong swimmer but I was a divemaster in Hawaii and have logged over 500 dives and the one that sticks with me the most is diving off honolulu and swimming out and the bottom drops off to blackness I imagined all kinds of big things coming up out of that darkness to bite me.

You are not alone Vash. Does this happen to you? You get called out to go hunting or drive a DE event and you just say, "Ummm, nahhh, I can't go this weekend" and never give it a second thought, but when someone wants you to something wet you feel guilty and somewhat like a wuss?
I have struggled my whole life to become a better swimmer hoping that I would then enjoy the water. It just gets worse. I hate water. Always have. And I always thought that if I just got enough experience I'd love it like so many other people do. What I learned - I scared myself to death SKUBA diving - I nearly died snorkeling, I got jammed up with a kayak under a log in a fast moving river and damn near drowned, and I did it all just so i could learn to enjoy that crap. Ain't gonna happen for me and it might never happen for you. There are lots of fun things to do in the world. Being uncomfortable and wet isn't necessary.

Yes but dying from shark attack would really, really suck. ;)

I just don't like the whole beach experience. Sand, sunburn (i'm scots-irish-swedish pale), medical waste, stepping on stuff, that nasty residue you get on you after swimming in the ocean...not really my thing. The chicks are awesome, but hey, there are chicks everywhere.

I am much more a mountain retreat type of person.

I'm a fish, love the water. My kids too.

Totally agree. Love the Maldives and its hard to find a better place to get wet. Maybe the Red Sea but its surrounded by idiots...

You had to be strong swimmer when I took my cert. We had to dive in and swim the length of an Olympic size pool underwater. On my open water we had jump off of a 30' high bridge in full gear.

I was only 13yrs old, I was the first NAUI Junior scuba diver in Ontario. I had the 2nd highest mark in the class, at least 4-5 maybe more out of (aprox) 25 people failed. I believe it was a 36 hour course, written exam and 2 open water dives. I had to have a parent with me (not in the water) to dive or get air fills. My moms boss (dentist) had written permission to be my guardian and would take me on dives.

I had my scuba bronze medallion at 15 or 16. I had to perform artificial respiration on an old guy, yuck.

Like I said I dont consider myself to be a strong swimmer I could swim the length of an olympic sized pool underwater didn't mean I was a strong swimmer it meant I could hold my breath a long time I was the slowest in my group when I took the qual test for UDT it was a 1 mile open water swim and I barely made it. On my final divemaster cert dive we were doing a rough water cliff entry at Holona blow hole anybody from HI knows the cove its dangerous at best noticed a diver face down in the water (for real not part of the class) me and my buddy jumped from 30 feet or more the swell was out when we went to get to him I once swam against a 4-5 knot current to get a guy in a class that had drifted away from the group I could do that because I had huge fins not because I was a good swimmer. I dont have alot of awards I do have alot of dives logged in logbooks and I still have trouble doing a lap in a big pool. Swimming and diving are apples and oranges I know of folks that cant swim a lick that are great divers.

Everyone needs to learn to swim well. I'd almost go so far as to say that it should be part of the health care system where pools are present at elementary schools, but we already wasted the funds on public pools where instructors don't care anymore. It's a shame.