Underwater

Post Reply New Topic

I love swimming and I know a few other people with Aspergers who do too. I believe it's a sensory thing - similar to how Temple Grandin (famous autistic woman) built a squeeze machine because she likes the sensation of pressure, and also similar to how people on the autistic spectrum often find it helpful to have weighted blankets.

People on the autistic spectrum often have sensory issues, and the need for pressure is a common one. Water exerts more pressure on the body than air does. I find it very calming to be in water, although I've never worked out how to swim underwater for more than a couple of strokes - I always seem to float back to the top again!

There is "seaweed" in the Great Lakes ofcourse, but nothing out of the ordinary AFAIK. Aside from Northern Pike and Muskellunge, there are no native creatures (nor any non-indigenuous ones AFAIK) which can harm you at all. Attacks from both Northern Pikes and "Muskies" are extremely rare, but they have occured.

As far the ocean being very clean....that depends. Sometimes we get swimmer alerts in certain areas right here in S. Florida because the ocean water has high levels of bacteria from sewage run-off. The ocean around heavily populated areas is often polluted in general and not always as clean as TV would have you believe. As far as it being clear....that also depends. I'm guessing you're mostly seeing tropical/subtropical seas on TV. While the water in the shallow tropical seas of the world is often clear (sometimes incredibly so), that's not always the case either. Visibility changes on a daily basis for a number of different reasons including a shift in currents, rough seas, plankton blooms, sand from nearby dredging operations, etc....Some days in the summers down here we'll have underwater visibility in excess of 100ft in some areas. The next day the visibility might be reduced to almost nil in the same areas. This is a major concern for divers ofcourse and we always try to find out what the visibility is like in a given dive spot before going there.

In any case....the ocean water is never very clear at all on the eastern seaboard north of Florida. I haven't been to Lake Michigan, but I have spent alot of time in Lake Erie. The water in Lake Erie is often quite clear and clean these days largely thanks to the non-native zebra mussels which are, ofcourse, filter feeders, who remove particles from the water column. The Mussels have created alot of problems however, so whatever good they have done has pretty much been out-weighed by the bad. Still....the water in Lake Erie, at least, is usually much clearer than the ocean water in most parts of the eastern seaboard.

You'd be surprised by the number of people who've never even seen the ocean in person. I live in S. Florida and we get millions of tourists each year from all over the world. This presents a rather ridiculous and often enough, even dangerous, situation for many tourists that visit here who are ignorant of the ocean and the life within it.

For one thing.... we have dozens of drownings per year due to rip currents. Tourists are often the ones who drown because they don't know how to get out of a rip current (you swim parallel to the shore rather than attempting to swim against the current) when they're caught in one. The local officials don't do a very good job of educating tourists about these currents either.


I must admit i'm always amused by some of the questions and statements people (again...mostly tourists who have spent little or no time around the ocean in their lives) have about the ocean and marine life. Here's some funny examples that i've gotten a kick out of it.


I'm on a local beach snorkeling or diving and somebody approaches me and asks...."Are there sharks out here"???


My response?


"Well...it IS the ocean and sharks can be found in just about every part of the ocean the world over. If you're wondering whether sharks are common in this area... .yes.... certain species are common enough. Only a few species pose a potential threat to humans though in that they have been responsible for unprovoked attacks". Then...if I care to....I go through the whole litany of potentially dangerous shark species which live in these waters (Bulls, Tigers, etc...) and a bunch of other shark education/shark-attack prevention stuff.


A women who was on snorkel charter in the Florida Keys with her family once told me that they "saw Nemo" while snorkeling. Nemo is the clownfish character from the animated movie "Finding Nemo". I told her..."umm...no....it's very unlikey that you saw "Nemo" since clownfish are native to the Indo-Pacific region and you probably would have to travel about 6500 miles due west of here to see one in the wild". Now it is POSSIBLE that someone could've released a clownfish from their saltwater aquarium or something, but I doubt it. We DO have Indo-Pacific lionfish in these waters (and elsewhere in the Tropical Atlantic) now. Somehow a few dozen managed to escape from a local aquarium a few years ago and have bred like crazy. They are creating some major problems for the native fish and AFAIK, no one has developed a way to eradicate them yet.

Another snorkeler once told he saw a "sea snake" and my response was similar. What he saw was most likely a whitespotted snake EEL which are very common on the particular reef we were snorkeling at and i've seen them many times. Sea Snakes are, once again, native to the Indo-Pacific though it's possible a few have made their way into the Atlantic/Caribbean through the Panama canal or something.

It's also unfortunate that so many people are ignorant of the ocean and the life within it because they often HARM the life within it without knowing they're doing so. Tourists who are snorkeling will often stand on or touch the living coral. Many will do so even AFTER being clearly told by the instructors on snorkel charters that this harms the coral. Boaters will toss their anchors onto coral as well and are responsible for much of the degradation our reefs have seen in the past 30 years or so. Even certified divers who ought to know better do some incredibly stupid, ecologically harmful and dangerous things. If you go out on a dive charter and you don't have a dive buddy, the charter operators will often pair you up with another diver who is also alone. If none are available, then the divemaster or some other certified employee will accompany you on your dive.

One time they hooked me up with this one guy and considering what he did, I would've preferred to dive alone. We came upon a large coral head and there was a spotted moray eel halfway out of it's crevice lair in the coral head. My dive "buddy" started poking at the eel with handle of his dive knife for some idiotic reason. Moray eels rarely, if ever, attack humans unless they are provoked. Thus....this was an ideal way to provoke the animal and either my buddy or myself could've received a rather nasty bite and an equally nasty infection since the mouths of these eels contain alot of bacteria. I indicated my disapproval of his actions via hand signals, but he didn't respond. After that, I swam away from him and the eel in order to avoid getting bitten myself. He didn't get bitten and he merely had fool's luck on his side there.


The long and short of all this....there are millions, if not billions, of people in this world who probably shouldn't go anywhere near the ocean. It's a shame that so many people are almost entirely ignorant of 71% of the earth's surface not to mention one of the most beautiful, exciting and life-affirming parts of the earth.

Here's another thing people ought to be aware of before diving/snorkeling here in S. Florida, or just about anywhere for that matter:



The charter operators, resorts, etc....who depend on snorkelers/divers are, often enough, deliberately deceptive for obvious reasons. They will lie about conditions for one thing. They will tell potential snorkelers/divers that the conditions are ideal, when in actuality, they're anything but. They lie about visibility, how rough the seas are, etc....They will then make excuses about the less-than ideal conditions once they have you on the boat and good luck getting a refund out of them.

One fairly easy way to avoid being deceived by them is to go out on the afternoon charters rather than the morning ones. That way you can ask the actual snorkelers/divers returning from the morning trip about the conditions as they obviously have less of a motivation to lie about them.

Also...the charter operators and others will often post pictures of INDO-PACIFIC reefs and marine life in their advertisements. Most people don't know the difference between the marine life/reefs of the Indo-Pacific and what's around here. While the reefs/marine life down here are undoubtedly beautiful, those of the Indo-Pacific are often STUNNINGLY so. Many of the corals, fish, etc....native to the Indo-Pacific are simply and relatively more eye-catching than those native to S. Florida and other areas of the tropical western atlantic. Thus...don't expect to see everything,or even anything, shown in the photos of the reefs, fish, etc....many of these charter operators use in their advertisements. The majority of the colorful saltwater aquarium fish you see are native to the Indo-Pacific. That's not to say there aren't any very colorful fish native to the waters of S. Florida, but comparatively speaking, the marine life of the tropical western atlantic is a far cry from that of the tropical Indo-Pacific.

It's kinda like comparing the birds native to North America and Europe to the ones native to the Amazon and other neotropical regions.


I know this is off-topic (as are my other posts in this thread *sorry* ), but I think it's useful FYI for anyone thinking of snorkeling/diving here in S. Florida (or again...just about anywhere.) These charter trips often cost $100 or more, especially if you don't have your own snorkel/dive gear. I just hate to see people get duped by unscrulpulous charter operators who will tell people just about anything to get them to book a trip.

Last edited by Horus on 14 Aug 2010, 5:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I loooove swimming, especially underwater. I like the feeling of water, when I move my hands around in a swimming pool it feels just like a harder version of air.

Same here.

I love being in water but i hate getting my head wet. I don't have anything against diving as long as I have goggles.

If you dive deep enough the water starts pressuring and it's a nice feeling having all those tons of water over your head. I like the feeling of being squeezed. Maybe that's some kind of link to AS.

Anyways swimming is awesomely fun.

Either use stronger strokes, better kicking (flippers might help)...or you can go the old fashioned way and tie a few rocks to yourself.

I like to slowly blow air out of my nose as I go down. It helps me hold my breath longer, clears water out of my goggles, and obviously, lowers bouyancy a bit.



Oh, I know there's nothing in there that can actually harm me (aside from the occasional leech, which I'm not THAT afraid of), it's more of an irrational fear, like spiders.

I can't help it



I'd say Lake Michigan visibility is usually somewhere around 10-15 feet. I'm not very good at estimating distances though.

I think my favorite lake is probably Duck Lake, every time I've been there, the water was so clear you could see straight to the bottom (and it gets deep pretty fast).



We get that a lot in Lake Michigan too, and it's not tourists

It seems like the deathcount has gone down quite a bit though, we've recently had a "green, yellow, red flag" system installed and it seems to be helping.

I love being in the bath, does that count? I have since I was little. I used to annoy everyone in my family by just staying there for hours at a time. It's so peaceful, and relaxing, and isolated.

I used to enjoy swimming, aside from the hygiene squicks related to swimming pools. Now because of various problems that come with being trans, I don't go anymore. To be honest I like being veruca free.

I'm too far inland to go swimming in the sea, and it's pretty cold in most of Britain anyway.

Oh, so it isn't an Aspie thing to be afraid getting your head under the water at any age of your life.

I've always loved going in the swimming-pool - it's always been my favourite thing to do at school, and at least twice I week every summer and easter holiday I would go up to the swimming-pool at the sports centre with my cousin and play in the pool for hours. You would have thought that loving swimming so much and having lots of experience in the water, you would automatically learn to swim, but I was 11 years old before I learnt to swim, and even then I only done doggy paddle because I was always afraid of getting my head under the water. It might be because of my ears and sinuses problem, but even others who had the same problem still wore earplugs or noseplugs and carelessly went under the water. But me, right up to this day, I've always been afraid. Physically and psychologically. I always thought maybe it's because of my Dyspraxia or AS, simply because I was the only one with a disability in the whole class and was the last one to swim, I don't know.

I'm not much of a swimmer and have developed a bit of a fear of putting my face in the water as I've gotten older. But, my 5yr old daughter is learning to swim. She's very comfortable under the water and I would says she swims like a fish there. But, she's still struggling a bit with co-ordinating her breathing above water.

Not much. It seems that every year i tend to stay more far from water. it's like if every year a fear grows in me. Without reason (never had bad experience). Currently i prefer pools to sea because i see them safer, i can see what there is underwater (all black i see in the sea scare me), of course i still use life buoy. the problem is that chlorine give me sleep.

I love the quiet feeling of being underwater, and the safeness of the water caressing me and surrounding me. But I hate the resulting pressure in my ears and head and eyes. Arrrgh!

Due to said pressure. I can't stand to swim down very far, and don't understand how so many other people can. Do they feel the pressure less than I do, or do they simply have a higher tolerance for it? I have no idea.

I love to Swim in General I am waiting for summer to come to were I can start swimming again, our pool does not have a heater hooked up to it because we are on Propane and would chew through a 200 Gallon take in one month.

I am obsessed with goggles and being underwater. When I was a kid I would crawl on the bottom of the pool with goggles, I felt like I was on my own planet when under there. Couldn't hear anyone else, just the water and floating.

I envy all of you who know how to swim. The ocean world is something that will be closed off to me.