Last weekend, I enjoyed some quality time swimming with and marveling at manatees in Florida. I gushed about it in not one, but two blog posts, here and here. Seeing these strange, sweet and enormous creatures underwater reminded me of how much I love aquatic environments.
Almost ten years ago, I had the most magical experience underwater, scuba diving on the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. Exploring that quiet blue world and all its inhabitants, meeting up with sea turtles, fishes of every color, and even giant clams a meter in length gave me a deep sense of appreciation and wonder for our world.
Now, in 2025, I am in sore need of some wonder and appreciation for our world. You can relate, I’m sure.
So, I’m thinking about returning to scuba diving. I’ll need to get myself PADI certified; my last scuba course was 9 years ago and I didn’t end up finishing my open-water dives due to bad weather in Puerto Rico.
Scuba certification, for those who don’t know about this, requires three steps:
classroom or online course
pool skills course
open-water certification dives
The first two I can do here in the Boston area. The open-water part can be done off the New England coast as well, but I really want to go to a warm blue ocean environment for my open-water certification dives. I’m thinking about the Florida Keys or somewhere in the Caribbean.
So, now I get to do one of my other favorite activities: adventure travel planning! I’ll keep you posted.
I’m pretty sure I was a travel agent in a previous life.
Dear readers, if you have suggestions about lovely places to dive for a beginner, please do let me know. I’d welcome any comments about your experiences.
My favorite swimming pools are oceanside salt water pools and there’s one just a block away from where I’m staying on research leave.
You can read about the St Clair Hot Salt Water Pool here.
“St Clair Pool is an outdoor hot salt water pool built on a beautiful site at the southern end of St Clair beach. It is the only surviving saltwater pool of several in Dunedin from the late 1800s. Its wonderful location on the beachfront makes it a highly pleasurable swimming experience. It is particularly suitable for those who love swimming in salt water, but may not wish to venture into the brisk ocean water. The pool is heated to 28 degrees Celsius and is a mixture of salt and chlorinated water.”
Here’s the poolHere’s St Clair Beach
We’ve visited the pool for coffee–it has a cafe that overlooks the pool and the beach–and in the morning it’s not too crowded. There are showers on the pool deck and lots of people just rinse off, throw on their flip-flops (or jandals, as they say here) and stroll home.
I love how many seniors there are using the pool. I definitely won’t feel old. What I want to be able to do is lane swim for fitness, doing freestyle/front crawl. But I need to work on all the bits of the stroke first, especially the breathing. I’ve been looking for a drill progression to get me more comfortable with the breathing first. Then I’d like to work on my kick, and then the arms.
My goal is to be able to swim well enough to join a masters’ swim group and hang out in the slow lane.
Thinking I could give the drills a try while I’m here near one of the most beautiful pools I’ve ever been in before.
HI readers– I’m writing this from Crystal River, Florida, where My friend Gal and I have been swimming with manatees and also witnessed a manatee luncheon at the Homosassa Springs Wildlife State Park. A full report is coming on Wednesday, but for now (while I’m still mid-vacation), here are some things to know about manatees:
One: Manatees hang out in rivers and springs near the Gulf of Mexico (I’m ignoring that stupid renaming debacle, as is everyone around here) in the winter, as the water in the springs is a constant 72F. This is how you can swim with them. Crystal River is Manatee Central, with scads of companies offering tours for snorkeling, kayaying in clear plastic boats, and riding in a glass-bottomed boat for viewing. There are also parks with boardwalks that let you see the manatees sometimes.
Two: Manatees’ favorite food is romaine lettuce. They each eat 150 lbs a day of the lettuce at the Homosassa Springs Wildlife State park. There you see some manatees that have been injured (generally by boat motors) and are cared for my the vet and science staff.
Here you see manatees with the remains of the romaine heads, thrown to them ny the park staff. The floating square is labeled “Manatee Salad Bar”.The two larger manatees– Aurora and Bessie– were orphaned long ago and live permanently in the park. They are 51 and 47 years old.
Three: Most swimming with manatees happens in shallow murky water, as they shuffle along the bottom foraging for grasses. But when you see them, they are astounding. By the way, the cover photo is me with a manatee.
You can see the manatee’s small front flippers; we were 15 inche away.Manatee head, up close and personal.
Four: You need to be calm and quiet when in the presence of a manatee. They can sense your heartbeat (says our very knowledgeable guide Brian), so will leave if you’re not chill. I was not chill on our first encounter (too excited), but soon learned.
Five: Swimming with manatees is guaranteed to make you very happy. I highly recommend it.
We few, we happy few, we band of manatee swimmers.Gal and me, first thing in the morning on the boat, with Cap’n Jake steering us.
And Six: It’s continually surprising to me how many people get up very early in the morning (i.e. before 7am) as a matter of course. We did a 7am tour (my choice!) because I thought it would be really nice. It was.
More details to come on Wednesday. In the meantime: have any of you swum with manatees? How did you find it? I’d love to hear about your experiences.
My friend Susan Simmons in British Columbia has a passion for marathon open water swimming and for coaching swimmers with disabilities.
She and her swimmers have done some amazing things over the years, but today marks a new step.
The Spirit Orcas, Canada’s only inclusive Masters “para” swim club, is competing at a Masters Swim Association of British Columbia (MSABC) swim meet in Nanaimo today. Five adult swimmers with intellectual and physical disabilities are set to compete amongst neurotypical and able-bodied swimmers in several events.
The Spirit Orcas, many of whom have their roots in Special Olympics, formed a swim club last year when British Columbia’s only para swim club halted its program. To promote inclusion in sport, the club members opted to take the bold step of registering as a Masters rather than para or “disabled”.
The Spirit Orcas have become well known for their open water achievements, including their relay swims in the Great Bear Rainforest and an 80km staged around Victoria’s peninsula. The swim meet in Nanaimo, however, is their first official competition outside the disability community.
As Susan says “It is only when we compete in the same spaces with each other that we have achieved inclusion”.
Maria, Drew, Melisa and Dixon, all members of the Spirit Orcas, prepare for a relay
Good luck to everyone! I hope you have a great time.
Earlier this year, Amy Appelhans Gubser achieved what many considered impossible: swimming nearly 30 miles from the Golden Gate Bridge to the Farallon Islands—a feat that no man or woman had ever completed before.
Amy faced unimaginable challenges: freezing 43-degree water, shark-infested depths, and hours upon hours of relentless swimming without a wetsuit.
We have written about her here and here. At the time, Sam was outraged by the lazy journalism that focused on her weight and family status, and didn’t even mention her name. I was interested to see how experienced swimmers reported on her feat, and and noted her many swimming achievements before this swim.
Now you can listen to Amy herself, in this podcast where she is interviewed about her swim.
Photo of Amy Appelhans Gubser in the water, wearing a swim cap with goggles and a huge smile.
I still think Amy is pretty darned cool. And I appreciate that the written intro to the podcast made no reference to her weight or her status as a grandmother. It even mentions her name!
You are the people who don’t take advantage of your glide in breast stroke. Who walk in the lane rather than swimming. Who do some sort of head’s down dog-paddle. Or who do very short strokes and over-cross your arms in freestyle. Or who don’t follow every movement in aqua fit class. Or take it easy instead of pushing yourself throughout.
But you show up every single session and do your workout, whatever it may be. Already I recognize and expect to see you when I’m lifeguarding.
If I were you, I would welcome coaching or lessons because improving my strokes and speed are constant goals. But you seem happy to be moving through the water, and that’s the important thing.
You demonstrate discipline I don’t have, just by showing up every day.
Older women smiling and laughing during a water aerobics class. Photo from oldldadygains.com
Earlier this year I wrote about watching my friend Aimee play underwater hockey and mused about giving it a try. The local club has a three-session tryout package so I signed up and went to my first practice last week.
It is really hard work! I spent close to two hours practicing skills with fins and snorkel, and then playing a game. There is definitely speed and skill involved – not that I demonstrated much of either. Most of the others were pre-teens, so strategy was largely non-existent too. But fun? Most definitely lots of that.
I loved that we were all equals in the water. There were adult men larger than me, at least one other woman, and lots of kids who looked to be around 10-13 years old. I tried to be conscious of my flippers so I didn’t accidentally hit one of the kids, but was surprised at how little I needed to think about possible injury due to our relative size differences.
Next time I go, I want to work on passing, figuring out how to watch for players in all directions, and get better at staying close to the bottom and curling around the puck with my body to change directions or protect it from opponents. Oh, and identify who is actually on my team!
I had to redo the fitness test that gave me so much trouble back in June but this time I was with three other people, which helped. They were all much younger and faster, but that spurred me to try and keep up during the sprint. I didn’t, but I did swim fast enough to meet the minimum time. The other tests were all fine.
It feels like a full circle moment, as I will be working at the pool where I returned to swimming in my 40s. At the time, it felt like a big deal to start an activity as an older adult. Now, I’m a much older adult and looking forward to sharing a lifetime’s worth of love for water with new generations.
Diane in a purple jacket and pink shirt, outside the Ottawa swimming pool complex where she will start work this week.
After a busy season of racing plenty of IRONMAN races in 2023, I was super excited to receive an email inviting me to compete at Worlds in Nice, France this year (based on IRONMAN’s “All World Athlete” age group ranking/points system). The following is a detailed recap of the day, which was September 22!
Swim 🏊♀️
After months of anticipation, training and nerves, as we hopped into the water to wait for the start, I felt surprisingly calm. Making it to the start line of a big race is an accomplishment in and of itself, let alone a world championship race on another continent! ✈️
I started the day anxious to get going, but reminded myself there’s literally nothing I’d rather be doing than an IRONMAN. Lifeguards and fellow triathletes to share the swim with, a beautiful bike course with professional photographers along the way and a marathon run with ample cheerleaders and “buffet stations” every couple of kilometers? Nothing to worry about except getting myself across that line? There’s nothing better than race day! 🎉
Though I felt pretty calm, the same can’t be said for the water of the Mediterranean Sea. Still a deep and beautiful blue, we had our first taste of what I’d call the day’s moody (but totally welcome!) weather in the swim. 🌊 I’d done some practice swimming but never too far from shore, so I wasn’t sure if the swells were par for the course or a special race day treat. At any rate, I loved the challenge! I could sight the buoys, for the most part. There were no jellies. 🪼 I started a bit back and it took me a while to find feet, but I liked the way the 3.8km were split up into an M shape. As the first age group to go, we had the course to ourselves! When things are rough in a swim, I tell myself that I’m lucky because I, for the most part, can think of a rough swim like a mosh pit and y’all know how I feel about that! 🤘🏼
I wrote before about how I felt like the pressure was off for this race. In all honesty, nobody really puts pressure on an age grouper the way we put it on ourselves. Entering this race, I didn’t look at my previous stats. This meant I wasn’t sure if I’d swam better or worse than my previous best, which I came close to but not quite on the day! The win for me—and the reason I was smiling—was that I really felt I’d done my best and done it with the positive attitude I knew I’d need going into the bike. 🥹
Bike
If you know me, you know I love biking. 💕🚲 That being said, seven hours is a long time to do anything, even if you love it! My game plan was to ride smart—pace myself through the climbing in the first 100k and make sure I fueled and kept in mind that I had a marathon to run yet. My coach said I could put out a bit of extra power on the climbs but to be honest, I mostly spun and enjoyed the scenery. ⛰️
I’d be lying if I said I paced the bike so well that the entire 180k was sunshine and roses. My neck hurt, I had a headache, I nearly missed bike special needs and the wind in the portion of the course after 100k that was described to me as “like a normal IRONMAN course” was incessant. But just as I was riding into that headwind, wondering how much of a refund I could get for my 2025 IRONMAN Lake Placid registration, we came to the most beautiful descent of the day. Just like that, I was back to loving biking again. 😂 I’d worried about it being busy or sketchy on the descents but the course was well-marked and the women I rode near were solid. I had tears in my eyes when this photo was taken because I was overwhelmed by the beauty of it all! 🥹 The gratitude I have for the places biking and endurance sports have taken me keeps growing. From what started as a love of spin classes that led to buying my first road bike ~15 years ago, it’s been quite the ride! ✨ In what felt like no time, I was back on the promenade, contemplating that marathon next on my to-do list.
PS Not only was I grateful to have my bike, which arrived a day and a half after I did, but man was I grateful for my disc brakes on the descents, the extra gears I added for this race on the climbs and my aero bars in that midride wind. 🫶🏼🚲🫶🏼 Also, a highlight I need to share was being able to call out my bib number en francais at the special needs stop with success. 🥐
Run
They’re all tough.
Last year in Kona, I found the run mentally hard, running to a turnaround at ~30km. In Nice, the marathon’s entirely along the flat, seaside Promenade des Anglais, involving four trips to the airport (~5k out/5k back). My other IRONMANs had 2-loop runs with variation, so I wasn’t sure what I’d make of Nice. I hoped I’d appreciate the flat ground and cheering, but wasn’t naive enough to think it would be “easy”.
I have a feeling if I asked a bunch of triathletes which course they prefer, they’d be split. They’d also likely complain about both. My goal is to stay away from that. I loved the energy from spectators, seeing Brent and my Tres Pinas peeps multiple times. I was also able to break it into obvious chunks. The 1st lap, I planned to go for a jog and keep my HR low. ♥️ The 2nd lap, I’d spin my hat around (channeling my athletic alter ego who doesn’t get tired and loves competing) and settle in. The 3rd lap, I’d add cola 🥤and walk the aid stations. The 4th lap, when the sun would be just about set, I planned to push to the finish line.
For the most part, this worked out. By the end of the 3rd lap, though, I had some cramping (the stomach kind and in one calf and then the other), so picking it up didn’t really happen. I had a buffer to come in under 13 hours, a pretty arbitrary target but one that motivated me. I was pleasantly surprised at how little I felt my nagging niggles and was mostly able to fuel throughout. It really was my legs that ran out of steam, and no wonder after that bike! Seeing people head to the finish line as I started another lap was hard, but people just coming off the bike were reminders we all wish we were in someone else’s (faster) shoes. The run out on the 4th lap felt longggg, but on the way back, “finally” heading towards the finish line, I dedicated a km to Brent (I couldn’t have done this without him!) and one to the memory of my mom to move me forward. I got “finish line feels” early on and felt some big emotions in that dark finish chute. IRONMAN marathons may always be tough, but that’s what makes that red carpet so meaningful. 💪🏼
Final Thoughts
A week after the race, home and almost over the jet lag, it all feels a bit like a dream. In previous races, I’ve raced immediately to focusing on what I could do better. With this race, I felt surprisingly content. I loved racing in France, sharing the course with an amazing field of women and taking on a challenging bike that I knew would mean I’d likely have a slower finishing time than my most recent races. I’m still remembering and reflecting on the experience each day but am heading into this offseason with a big sense of accomplishment and gratitude!
As I mentioned in my previous post, in which I dipped my toes into triathlon, my “big event” of the year was still to come. In a fit of optimism, possibly buoyed by the exhilaration of having signed up for a triathlon (signing up for stuff feels good to me), early this year I’d signed up for a 4.5k open water swimming race.
A week before my 40th birthday, on 1 September, it was time. The race took place in Lake Chiemsee, in southern Bavaria, in view of the Alps. It’s a beautiful panorama. The way the race works is that they ferry swimmers out to an island and then you swim back to shore, pretty much in a straight line. Like this:
Map of Lake Chiemsee with the island we started from circled in red and an arrow pointing towards the finish of the race.
We’d decided to make a family trip out of it, leaving on Saturday morning to make the drive down in a leisurely fashion, staying overnight, and driving home after the race on Sunday. We stayed at a lovely hotel with its own jetty and SUP boards for rent, which unfortunately we didn’t have time to use. The evening before the race, I’d arranged to meet up via Facebook with a few other people swimming the next day. But first, I had to pick up my starter kit. At the location, the main sponsor had put up a fun “I am water” backdrop, which I posed with, even though I wasn’t feeling quite sure about my aquaticness at that point.
Picture of Bettina in a white t-shirt and denim shorts, posing in front of a backdrop showing a person swimming butterfly and the words “I am water”.
I’d known the nerves would come, and the pre-race meet-up with other participants was part of my tactic to calm myself down. This was my first big open-water event and I do get impostor syndrome quite a bit. I was really glad I’d made this dinner arrangement. Not only did we have a delicious dinner in a traditional beer garden with a playground right next to our table for our 4 year-old to explore, but I also got to pick more experienced swimmers’ brains. They all assured me I’d be just fine and had signed up for a beautiful race. And wow, had I ever! Race morning came with beautiful sunshine, the perfect temperature, and no waves at all.
Panoramic view of a very calm lake with the Alps in the background. In the foreground is the finishing chute marked by yellow buoys and lines to the left, and a small child (Bettina’s son!) playing on the beach to the right.
There was a short safety briefing with an explanation of what would happen next, and off we were, all 270-ish of us, to the boat that would take us to the island. En route, I met a nice English guy (hey, Tom!) whose wife is from the region and he’d decided to give it a go while they were on holiday in the area. We chatted as we made the short crossing to the starting point, he kindly shared his vaseline to prevent wetsuit chafing, which I’d forgotten to bring, and I munched an energy bar and drank some of my sports drink.
And then… we were off! Since the water temperature was so perfect and the lake so calm, it didn’t take me a very long time to settle into a comfortable breathing rhythm. And even though there were a lot of us, there was none of the kicking and swimming over each other I’d been dreading, considering it was a mass start. It went great and I ended up losing track of how many buoys I’d passed after a while, I just kept going. Every once in a while I stopped for a split second to check I was well on track and, honestly, to admire the panorama – it was just stunning. Every 500 metres, they’d put a huge yellow buoy as a way marker so nobody got lost. There were also loads of lifeguards with paddle boards, kayaks and boats, so between them, the other swimmers, and the buoys, it was impossible to go wrong.
Towards the end, there was one section with a bit of a cold current and I was glad I’d decided to wear my wetsuit, also because I know that I tend to get cramps if I get too cold – this had happened to me a couple of times during my longer training swims in the outdoor pool.
Before I even knew it, I was swimming up to the finish chute! As I waded out of the water, I spotted my partner and son waving and shouting. I was so happy my son got to see his Mama do something big and challenging, and above all, having fun! It’s the way I’d love for him to approach sports and movement as he grows up. I wasn’t in it to win it – I was in it to enjoy it, try something new, and challenge myself.
Bettina, wearing a bright pink race cap, swimming goggles, and a long-sleeved wetsuit, crossing the finishing line after getting out of the water. A large digital clock in the background reads 1:30:07.
In the end, I was super happy with my final time of 1:30:08. I came 8th in my age group, which wasn’t bad at all! I definitely want to do this again. Next year, the same race will take place on my actual birthday, which is kind of a sign, but I’m also still considering other options – maybe a different lake! What started as my personal challenge the year I turned 40 has opened up a new path that I’m super excited to keep exploring.
