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Open Water Swimming
What is the one thing South Padre Island has an abundance of?
The answer is not golf carts. It is water. We are surrounded by it which leads me to the topic of this week’s article, swimming. Swimming is one of the best workouts that someone could do because of how versatile it can be.
Swimming is most commonly done in a pool. In a perfect world, swimming for exercise would be best in a lap pool that is 25 meters from one side to the other. Unfortunately, we do not have an open-to-the-public lap pool on South Padre Island. The closest such pool is at the Margaret M. Clark Aquatic Center in Brownsville.
Now in relation to the Island, swimming can be done on either side of it. You can swim in the waves on the beach and swim with or against the waves. Swimming on the beach does come with its own set of dangers since rip currents could take swimmers out further than they are comfortable with. It can cause them to become exhausted if they fight the rip current. To avoid this, it is always recommended to swim with someone else and not go too deep.
You can also swim in the bay. This isn’t nearly as common as swimming on the beach, but it’s still an option. Open water swimming in the bay can be a very fun and unique experience but should be done with precaution because of how different it is then the beach. One thing that makes the bay even more unique is that the natural environment is above the ground.
There are oyster beds and sea grass along the bay floor. This along with boat traffic from watersports can make for an interesting swim. A great resource to use for open water swimming would be visiting the website of the ‘Gator Chasers’. They are a triathlon team in the Rio Grande Valley that has specialized classes and coaching for open water swimming in the bay.
Regardless of where, swimming is among the best forms of exercise. It has a low impact on the body and will leave you exhausted if not trained for it. It is also a great form of therapy if you are nursing an injury.
