John 'The River Guy'

Roughly a decade ago, one January, frigid, mid week and random day; I drove across West Point Lake on either HWY 109, HWY 219 or Cameron Mill Road on the way to solicit an account for electric meters. I am a marketing rep for a utility recycling company. I was working that triangle of Lanette, AL. La Grange, GA Newnan, GA and towns like that. All I remember was looking over those placid waters and realizing they needed me. I NEEDED THEM! With so many water ways closer to home I simply forgot about this rustic section of open water paradise stradled on the state line between Alabama and Georgia. Stradled between the Central and Eastern time zones.

Starting out from the Dewberry Park pier, off of AL County Hwy 288 the water had a heavier silty feel covered in yellow pollen for some reason. Odd for mid July. As I swam south ward the water quality improved and it’s viscosity felt lighter. When you swim in the Coosa River most of the time your body gains an amazing capacity to be able to ‘feel the water’ and guage it’s thickness. With the Coosa being one of the most silt filed waterways in the state everything else feels cleaner. What made this swim the most unique of my 25 years in open water swimming was that I went back and forth between the central and eastern time zones. Swimming in and out of Alabama and Georgia respectively. (the white line in the following photos denotes the state and time zone line boundaries). The swim offered a fantastic cove to keep me safe from boating traffic. The channel was a ‘conveyor belt’ of propellers that spelled danger. The state of Georgia did a great job in placing buoys in the right places to demark clear channels and thus keeping traffic where it needed to be. This made this part of the lake almost like an ‘aquatic highway’ causing boaters to go in a narrow straight line. It was certainly busy as any place I’d swam, yet I felt safe the whole way out and in.

In closing, I regret it took me this long to find such a splendid place that seems out of conscious of the greater Southeast region save for the locals. A fantastic get away guarded by a rustic country church, maybe praying for all boaters and athletes to make it back to the Dewberry Park pier safe. Please, Atlanta………………….keep the Chattahoochee clean!

‘John The River Guy’