Snakes on a Swim (Page 2)

I grew up on a lake and have swam in lakes all my life and still do now.  When I was a kid, we would probaly swim 200 days out of the year in the lake and this was over a period of many years. 

One time, we saw a snake in the water.  We saw it when it was about 10-15 yards away.  We got out of the water, let it swim by.  I would expect we were back in the water that day and surely the next. 

We worried much more about jumping on a stump or getting cut by a shell than gators and snakes. 

Well, when it comes to snakes (and turtles and large fish and such), one of two things will happen: 1) They'll go after the first thing that hits the water - as in the elite wave, which is not me, or 2) they'll go after the stragglers at the very back which is not me either!  That's one of the nice things about being an MOP - safety in numbers....

Seriously, though...I grew up on a small lake in the south and swam in it all the time as a kid.  There were water mocassins and snapping turtles and all sorts of stuff in the lake. Never once did I have anything even come near me - they're typically pretty freaked out by splashing and noise, and noise carries a long way underwater.  You can imagine that a mass start tri would send them packing! I wouldn't worry too much about it....

Swimming in North America, there is absolutely no snake that will attack you unless it somehow felt cornered... in an open water swim, any snake will be long gone before anyone got close enough to make it feel trapped.

When I was a kid, I had numerous pet snakes... wanted to be a herpetologist (reptile/amphibian professional geek) when I grew up.  I have literally kept dozens of snakes as pets over the years, some approaching 10 feet in lenght.  Let me say it again... you have nothing to fear from snakes in the water. 

That said, when I started training for tri's last year, I was swimming in a local creek (a tidal tributary of the chesapeake bay).  There was a small pool of water that had a riffle running into it where the water was squeezed through some narrower channels.  I always felt creepy because the water was murkety and the riffle would bring down sticks and leaves and such that I'd bump into unexpectedly... I just told myself not to worry about it.

One evening just before dusk, I was trying to cram in a swim before it got dark when 4 spanish speaking guys came down with fishing line and hooks.  They broke off branches to use as poles, dug up some worms, and came over and started fishing about 5 feet away from me.

I felt bad that I had obviously ruined their chances for dinner tonight, but hey, I was here first.  WRONG about that, within seconds, all 4 of them had rods bent over... and a few seconds later each of them was wrangling a 2-3 foot long american eel on the shore.  YIKES.  Totally harmless, but still gave me the willies and I was out of there lickety split.  I watched them for about 5 minutes as they proceeded to pull about 20 eels out of this pool and toss them in a bucket and then get in the car and go home.

I now have no doubt that lots of the stuff I was bumping into and ingoring even though it was creepy and I swore didn't feel like leaves/sticks were eels making their annual migration up the streams.  I haven't been swimming since, even though I know they're harmless.