Swamp Monster

This is the first post of a new blog label called "Stories of Alex.” I thought it might be time to record some of my stories from over the years, I promise they are genuine and true (at least exactly as I my embellished memory serves).

In 1994 I was 17 years old and living in Western Maryland with my Dad and Stepmom for the summer. There was a mountain lake nearby with a large swimming area that I swam in almost every day. I had recently acquired a high quality diving mask, snorkel, and fins for my birthday. I had visions of becoming a rescue diver and practiced my underwater swimming and free diving during every lake visit.

Hunter Lake was part of Cunningham Falls State Park. It was an elongated oval lake in a pine forest valley with a large cove off one side. On either side of the cove were roped off swimming areas. It was Maryland so there were a million rules regulating the football sized parcels of water. Lucky for me there were no rules prohibiting snorkeling. I used to covertly dive below the ropes and swim underwater along the shoreline until I was out of sight of the lifeguards. It was a gamble because I had to breathe in enough air to make it out of sight before surfacing. Away from the crowded swimming areas was an underwater ecological wonderland of aquatic forests, fallen logs, large and small mouth bass, pumpkin seed sunfish, turtles, snakes, and the occasional muskrat. Maryland's litigious constraints did their best to keep the humans inside the swimming area, but could do nothing to keep the wildlife out. Occasionally a curious snake or muskrat would detour inside of the ropes. A mass evacuation of the predominant city people who frequented the lake would follow. Usually someone would scream “Snake!” and the swimming area would vacate like a scene out of Jaws. The charged crowd reminded me of a herd of deer that would stampede when spooked.

Hunter Lake

One day I went to the lake on a mid-week afternoon. The first swimming area was packed with tourists from DC so I drove to the area on the far side of the cove. It was also crowded, but mostly with kids. The inside of the swimming area was divided by another rope into a shallow and deep section. Parents and kids too small to swim alone occupied the beach. Older kids, say elementary school age, were playing in the shallow area. The scene was an idyllic picture of a Maryland summer, with golden sunrays beaming through green trees into dark fresh water. I dropped my towel on the edge of the beach and waded into to the swimming area, mask, snorkel, and fins in tow.

Once it was deep enough to swim I donned my fins, pulled down my mask, and slipped below the surface. I did a few exploratory laps around the outer perimeter of the deep end searching for pumpkin seed sunfish. They nested just beyond the swimming area at the boundary of the aquatic forest. I usually spent as much time as possible at the bottom of deep end, which was about eight feet deep. When I surfaced I did so as stealthily as possible, although clearing the snorkel made a loud noise and shot water into the air. On this particular day, my attempts to break free of the swimming area boundaries were thwarted by a patrolling park ranger in a motorboat.

Instead I decided to pass the humid afternoon by trying to swim the length of the swimming area in one breath. It totaled about forty yards from end to end, which was super far. I did have the advantage of long diving fins and some experience at swimming efficiently underwater. My first two attempts got me about two thirds of the distance. I chalked those up to good practice and prepared for one solid push by calmly breathing deeply and slowly to saturate my system with oxygen. I also decided to follow the rope that divided the deep and shallow areas to gauge my process.

I inhaled the deepest breath my teenage lungs could contain and gently pushed off the gravelly bottom of the lake. I glided as long as possible and then scissor kicked with full extension back into an efficient glide. I repeated the process underneath of the rope while slowly and methodically exhaling. I made the halfway point with a surprising amount of air left in my lungs, but soon encountered a larger problem than carbon dioxide saturation.

My left leg has always been stronger than my right leg. The muscle imbalance caused a right turn that would become more exacerbated the farther I swam. I had been using the rope to correct for it until a small aquatic forest engulfed me. In the length of one kick I was entangled in seaweed. The feeling of slimy seaweed against my bare skin was horrible. I did my best to keep it together and angled out of the forest. Suppressing the panic I mustered enough determination to continue, even with the added drag of copious seaweed hanging off my head, snorkel, shoulders, and fins.

Without the guiding line of the rope I veered dangerously off course. I knew I was headed into the shallow area, but murky sediment made navigating impossible. The muffled noise of kids playing and underwater footsteps started to get louder while the visibility dropped to almost zero. I was lost, but refused to abandon the mission. To make matters worse, the panic of zero oxygen was setting in. I forced myself to keep it together and get through two more kicks, which combined with the ensuing glide was an eternity. Finally, I subdued the panic for one more kick and then I had to surface. The involuntary breathing response gave me about as much choice in the matter as someone with eminent diarrhea.

Following my protocol, I surfaced just to periscope depth. I was surrounded by playing children, but once I cleared my snorkel and took a deep breath I could dive back down, reverse course, and get the hell out of there. As my snorkel broke the surface I used what tiny bit of air I had left to clear the water and prepared for the satisfaction of fresh oxygen in my lungs. The clearing went normal, but just as I breathed in something went horribly wrong. My throat immediately burned with fire and I couldn't draw a full breath into my lungs. The choking reflex took over and adrenaline filled my body as I grasped for air. I erupted out of the water, which luckily was only about 3 feet deep, with both hands clenching my throat. My arms flayeled and splashed as I tried to maintain my balance, standing while wearing fins. I hacked and wheezed desperately trying to get air in my lungs. After a fit of coughing that would rival the best of any die-hard smoker, I felt the object lodged in my esophagus move. I clenched my abs and coughed a full body cough, which was enough motive force to dislodge the obstruction. Finally fresh air! As the panic waned and death retreated I caught a glimpse of my respriatoral adversary. It was a dragonfly! It had been skimming the surface without a care until a chance meeting with the business end of my snorkel ended its life deep in the bowels of my throat. The odds were incredible! Poor thing, the last thing it heard before the lights went out must have been a loud "thoomp".

Although it seemed like it as I struggled for my life, time did not stop when I exploded out of the water. The many children playing around me had no clue about my underwater mission or the dragonfly that nearly killed me. From their perspective it was a just another idyllic summer afternoon. Then an explosion of water, mud, and seaweed shattered their peace. In a child’s mind the only plausible explanation for a seaweed covered figure to erupt from below the murky surface of a natural lake was a swamp monster. They reacted as such every single child near me panicked, screamed, and trampled their less athletic younger brother or sister on their way out of the water. The screaming was contagious and soon a mass exodus cleared the entire side of the lake. Even the few wading adults decided it was better to run first, ask questions later, and get out of the water. That left me standing alone in the water, mask and snorkel dangling in my hand like a smoking gun. In the eyes of the rest of the world I was guilty of an egregious, premeditated prank that would ruin swimming in natural bodies of water for a number of impressionable youth.

The lifeguard was the first to act, jumping off his stand and running to me. In his eyes I was guilty of multiple violations of Maryland’s code of State Park Regulations. There would be no trail, no jury, just a guilty teenage standing with evidence in hand. I tried to explain what happened, even pointing to the dead dragonfly I hacked up that was slowly floating away. It was to no avail. My day at the lake was over and I was lucky not to be expelled for the rest of the summer. I had no other choice but to hang my head low and walk in shame across the beach to the scorn of every parent and still-crying child. I gathered my belongings and quietly made my way off the beach and up the hill to my car. As I followed the road around the narrow valley echo’s of crying children reverberated off the valley walls. My parting thought was “Maybe the creek at the bottom of the dam is still deep enough for a dip.”