John 'The River Guy'

During my last post I was able to extrapolate my experience distance swimming at Lake Guntersville to it’s microcosm similarity to the Pacific Ocean. I’ve always considered the same dynamic in regards to Weiss Lake. Like the Atlantic it sits to the east of everything. At least in my reality here in Alabama geography wise, it being on the Alabama, Georgia state line. The wave action is choppy and sharp with ripples like you’d see off of Cocoa or Daytona Beach, Fl. The water quality is more polluted and silty like the Atlantic is compared to the Pacific. It is probably Alabama’s most polluted major lake. Ironically, hosting some of the cleanest waters from Little River in confluence with the dirtier waters from the start of the Coosa near Rome, GA. Having paper mills and such right out of Georgia up river feeding into it, the dirtier waters win out most times. It’s also one of Alabama’s more shallow lakes as the Atlantic in general is more shallow than the Pacific. Whatever one thinks of ole’ Weiss it was my first lake to ever have a swim. Ironically, it was a place I encountered my first live cotton mouth. I remember the moment well. While a student at Westminster Elementary School we visited the lake house of a classmate named Chris. He had that cool fiber glass waterslide that all the pools have except it was on a dock. A couple of us slid off into the water and ole’ ‘Johnny Snake’ comes swimming up to greet new friends. We got out fast. Looking back it certainly was a water moccasin in the way it was swimming. Water moccasins more oftren swim with their heads above water compared to non venomous water snakes. Of course, we thought it resembled a cobra and we thougth it was one. At least it wasn’t that.

Weiss is where I traditionally finish my open water ‘travel season’ during the back end of August. It’s the final lake I swim after the four or five I start with in June. It is an exhausting excursion out past Centre going toward Cedar Bluff along the Highway 9/68 causeway. It is my most mentally taxing swim of ‘straight line’ boredom. It’s usually where I encoutered summer storms that can whip up pretty feisty waves. Yet, it is my second favorite because it always allows me to have a water front dinner as a reward once I’m done at either Jake’s On The Lake or Decks and Docks in Leesburg. It’s my ‘celebrate the summer’ lake and a way to look forward to the cooler waters of fall back home in Gadsden on the Coosa. It was my first lake of my life and my last one each summer of my swimming travel life. I wouldn’t want it any other way.

Stay Wet