Lake Swim at Oak/Ohio St. (Page 2)

Dare ya.......

Well, I ended up going this past Tuesday and it was great.  My wetsuit is sleeveless and I didn't think the water was too cold, although I prefer it that way.  I'll be going again this Tuesday around 5pm with my brother if anyone is interested.

Odd. I was thinking about going at 6pm Tuesday. You should wait for me!

I'll wait for ya if it's not raining, I've been riding my bike there!

I'll be there tomorrow morning at 7. Hopefully the rain holds off.

I was just looking at it on google maps, where do you park?

Do you enter the water near the 'beachstro' and swim south?


Edited by alex jb 2010-06-11 10:20 PM

I usually look for street parking on Illinois or Grand or a street that runs for just a block between them called Peshtigo Ct. It's right near Navy Pier. Then you just walk under LSD and you're there. If the weather is okay there should be lots of other people there as well.

Once you get to Ohio St. Beach you swim north. I'm not sure if they put the 1/4 mile and 1/2 mile markers out there yet.

If you are for sure gonna go and have any other questions feel free to send me a PM and I'll give you my #. I'll probably get there around 7 or just before.

I did go, got there about 7.30 ans swam south from oak st.

Don't think it was the right choice as the water round the corner from the beach to the straight north/south section was choppy and had a decent swell.

I'll pm you my number so you have it and I'd like to swim down there again, but with someone. I felt worried swimming on my own.

I did go, got there about 7.30 ans swam south from oak st.

Don't think it was the right choice as the water round the corner from the beach to the straight north/south section was choppy and had a decent swell.

I'll pm you my number so you have it and I'd like to swim down there again, but with someone. I felt worried swimming on my own.

Went swimming today. The markers are out and the water is nice. Today was a great day to swim!

Is anyone aware of a source for real-time (or close to it) updates on bacteria levels in the water? I know the general rule of thumb is to avoid it for a day or two after heavy rains so the runoff has time to dilute, but if there is some organization out there testing the e-coli levels in the water every day and publishing it, that would be useful info. Daily water temps would be good too!

How many lanes, how wide are thay and what is the diatance marked out?

Anyone know?

I swam from oak st round the curve and almost all the way to the ohio st beach then back, I'm guessing this is over a mile.

No lanes, just two red buoys (at least in the past; going for the first time on Wednesday) - one at 1/4 mile from the beach (Ohio) and one at 1/2 mile.

Dude you'lll be fine!!! Just go swim. I swam there three or four times a week last year regardless of conditions and never got sick. And really this third arm comes in handy sometimes. Literally.

I was a lifeguard for the park district for 7 years and worked at the lakefront every summer.  If you wanna know the secret of bacteria in the water ask me and I'll tell you.  The thing is, have you known someone to actually get sick from swimming in the lake?  I can say that I've never met someone who has, not even the hundreds of lifeguards that I've worked with.  But yeah, if you'd rather not know, I won't say anything about it either.

Do tell...

Alright, I started work around 8:30am and the people that come and test the waters get there around 9-9:30am.  They have a container that is attached to a 5ft long pole and they reach just passed the shoreline and get their samples.  The thing is, the beach may be open during the day of that particular testing, but we don't get the results for that until the next day.  So you see, that day when the beach was open could have been "contaminated", yet would close the next day for it, which that day there may be no contamination.  There were times that I would go for a swim while I was on duty, early in the morning when no one was there (I worked up at Touhy where it's not very busy), and the beach captain would come by in the boat and tell me to close my beach for bacteria.  I'd say ok and swim for another 5-10 minutes, never got sick.  Here's a tip though...the only real times the water may be contaminated is after some heavy rain.  They have to open the sewer locks downtown and let some of it drain into the lake or it will overflow.  That's when mainly it will be closed the next day for bacteria, but of course there will be days that it's closed and there wasn't rain, but if you're worried, worry about a day after real heavy rain.

All that said, this is by no means the official procedure, and is only our observation.  We would know the beach should be closed sometimes before the testers even come out.  Put two and two together and there ya go. 

Thanks for the inside track! That's helpful. I only asked because I had heard about beach closures at various times for high levels of bacteria, so I figured they were testing and posting results somewhere. I'm not a germophobe though, so if nobody here has gotten sick that's good enough for me! I'll just avoid it for a day after heavy rains.

Rumor is the storm may close the beach today. Meaning I'm going to way, again, to go swim.

hitting ohio street beach tomorrow with a couple kronies if anyone wants to come.  arrival 8:30am swimming at 9am. PM me for cell # if u wanna join us.

Was planning on meeting up with Jeebus2, but the storm that just rolled through will have drained a lot of downtown junk into the lake I think...

yeah, thought of that too but will probably still go....i didn't get an infection from the leech on my leg from a different lake swim this week so i'm gonna ride my luck to the end.  i've swam in the lake after counts were too high to keep beaches open and haven't been sick so i figure worst case scenario i go get a round of penicillin from the DR next week if needed.

livin' life on the edge baby.  

I'll probably go at 7. Ill plan on running but I'll bring the wetsuit just in case. If there are a lot of people swimming I'll probably join them. How bad can it be if everyone else is doing it?????