I had never been to Wasaga Beach, even though it's a short road trip from Toronto. Its reputation as the Daytona Beach of the North kind of kept me away.

But winter is coming. And I needed a swim.

And luckily, so did my co-swimmer Rhya, who having grown up in Grey County, is a Wasaga Pro. We packed up my little car on Sunday morning with snacks and beach blankets and her kiddo, Nomi, and away we went.

I am now in *official* possession of the Pro-Tips, and she said it was okay if I shared them with you too. So here you go.

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#1: The Drive

Don't take the 400. Just don't. It always sucks, it's never as fast as you want it to be and there's a reaaaaaaalllllly pretty side-road drive that takes you through Ontario's stunning Greenbelt -- from Mono Hills up to Stayner. GORG.EOUS.

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#2. The Strip. AKA “Beach 1”


Rhya said I should see it, since I'd never been. She said it in that “this-is-going-to-be-a-test-of-your-basic-human-abilities” kind of way that made me feel like I was about to cliff-dive into one of the Dangerous Wonders of the World and we'd see if I made it out alive or not.

We lasted 20 minutes.

The word that comes to mind when I think of that stretch of Wasaga Beach is CHAOS.

It was wall-to-wall people and EVERY SINGLE PERSON had their own umbrella, inflatable unicorn floatie, picnic cooler, lawn chair, frisbee, portable barbecue, musical device, beach towel and loud motorcycle.

When I think of beautiful beach umbrella scenes, I think of this instagram photographer I love who flies over the ordered, uniform, highly glamorous Italian beaches... Wasaga is not that. (CHAOS.)

But whatever, it was a spectacle worth 20 minutes of my life, and I was more than happy when Rhya and I looked at each other and said “OK! Let's move on!”

(*I also do want to acknowledge that, within the chaos, the wonderful wonderful melting pot of cultures that Ontario is famous for was on full display, and I once again felt so grateful to be shoulder-to-shoulder with my fellow Canadians in our great land of freedom and acceptance.)

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#3. The Umbrella (Part 1)

The thing that The Strip was incredibly useful for was that we stopped and purchased a beach umbrella from one of the little shops. This is a Pro-Tip that you MUST pay attention to. You need an umbrella at Wasaga Beach!! Full stop.

You can also get yourself a Unicorn if you want. Put that one under Life Goals, if you must.



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#4. Far from the Madding Crowd: “Beach 3”

A short drive down the main street of Wasaga you can pop through the neighbourhoods of houses and old cottages and get to much, much quieter stretches of beach. Somewhere around 27th Street, in between Beach 3 and Beach 4, is the MAGIC.

Uncrowded sandy beaches to pitch your umbrella and unpack your picnic, and soft, blue-skied, sandbar-filled water as far as you can see. Warm, fresh, swimmable water. It is GLORIOUS. This was what I was hoping for.

*See the photo at the top of this post. This is what it's like.

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#5. The Sludge



I think it is actually technically, or maybe affectionately, known as "Beach Muck" by the locals, but one thing you need to know by heading over to the smaller Wasaga beaches is that they are not as regularly groomed as The Strip. This is a BIG BODY OF WATER. So a lot of sediment rolls in to the beach. It's black and slimey and mucky and gross. But don't despair! We just went for a short walk and found a stretch of beach that was perfectly great. You can walk right in, all sand, and the kiddos can play right at the water's edge, and it's all good.

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#6. The Umbrella (Part 2)

Once we were settled in at the new beach, we unpacked our beach blankets, our picnic, our sandcastle-building materials, and our sketchbooks and hunkered down for the afternoon.

I was so happy that I was in the SUN (after this summer of grey chilly days) that I regret to inform you I was extremely careless with my sunscreen. I *thought* I was safely parked under the umbrella, but that toasty warm feeling on my back was in fact a roasty, full-on screaming sunburn. I'm too embarrassed about it to show you. Trust me, it's a doozy. So the Pro-Tip here is: don't do that. Make sure you're covered, that's why you got the beach umbrella in the first place.



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#7. The Ice Cream

There's lots of it around. Have some.



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p.s. As we are headed into our final weeks of summer, if you need a swimming hole road trip guide for somewhere fun, check out my Harold Quarry guide, or Lindsay's Prince Edward County guide.

yesterday's lake was quantum mechanics.
a whale-shaped rock.
a red guitar.
a too-shy bathing suit.
a new romance (not mine).

/

today's lake was a reminder.
it was not gentle.

We 3 Swimmers recently went on our first swimming road trip together. We bailed early on work, piled into Laura's car, turned up the stereo and and drove our carload of chips and wine gums to Chelsea, Quebec to stay with our wonderful friend & Quebec correspondent Patrice (pictured above). It was an epic weekend, CHOCK FULL of our favourite things and none of us will ever forget it.

The Big Deal thing that happened, was that we went CLIFFJUMPING. Yes. We did this. Below you'll find our individual stories, and photographic proof, about how it all went down.

But first, it seems so fitting to publish this group piece about JUMPING IN today – because today is the First-Year Anniversary of Swimming Holes We Have Known!!! It's hard to believe how much has happened in a year just because of this blog. Our stories have had well over 25,000 reads!!!!! We've been featured on CBC radio. We have Olympic swimming heroes sharing our posts. We starred in a short film in a secret pool. We now regularly use the words Docktail and Rocktail in our vocabularies. We go on road trips to find swimming holes, individually and collectively. We have a legion of fans (well, a small legion) sending in their best imitation photos. And people all over social media are now using our hashtag to share their swimmy moments, #swimmingholeswehaveknown.

I think we 3 all agree that the best decision was that we just jumped in. And that we did it together. We thank you for being here with us.

Without further ado, we give you Cliffjumping: The Swimming Holes We Have Known Edition.

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Rhya:


I am not a cliffjumper. I am a cautious klutz, so I never really saw cliffjumping fitting into my lineup of life skills. I mean I can dive in off a not so high diving board, or a rickety raft, that's not an issue. But cliff jumping... that has always remained one of those things I wanted to have the guts to do... but simply could never dig deep enough to find them when the opportunity arose. I remember camping in Killarney one summer, our site was situated almost directly beside the infamous cliffjumping site at the park. Smooth rocky Canadian cliffs overlooking that crazy see-through blue water, piled high with kids just throwing themselves in, over and over again. It looked like so much fun, and there I was tip toeing down towards the water's edge, to scrape my knees on the rocks as I very ungracefully tried to slide in. Why couldn't I just jump?

Then before we took off on our inaugural swim trip, I was visiting my dad and family in Gananoque. My brothers and I took a quick dip at the local berm, where I was teased for being too cautious about jumping in off the higher than usual dock (which I eventually did... flailing cannonball style). And then they razzed me again for chickening out of cliff jumping at the locks we visited up the road. And again, I felt that same irritation... why couldn't I just jump?

So when we hit the Gatineau River for our swimming trip the following weekend and our intrepid host Patrice gave us a tour of swimming options and then mentioned the potential of cliffjumping... my ears instantly perked up. She was looking for someone to join her, as she had yet to muster the courage to take the plunge along with all the ten-year-olds who apparently don't come programmed with self-preserving fear like us late thirtysomethings. And that was all I needed, a kindred spirit to snap me out of my fear. A positive push and assurance I was surrounded by strength, in the smiles of my fellow swimmers. The lever in my brain snapped on to "JUMP IN" and that was that. I knew I would take the plunge.

And the very next day I did! And it was worth every single second of excruciating tummy tumbling fear before I stepped off that cliff and fell arms waving, screams riding the wind, and toes curling up towards the sun. The impact was shocking, the water was warm, and I felt alive. And I did it again. And again. And again.


So watch out Kilarney, I'm coming for you next!


(Bonus highlight was playing some ridiculous game where you yell an animal name at your fellow cliffjumper while they are jumping and then must try to emulate said animal in the air. It was a lot harder than it sounded. I believe I almost got a lion's roar in there somewhere... but probably sounded more like an screeching hyena.)

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Lindsay:




I am not a jumper-inner. I'm just not. I linger on the ladder, wade to my knees and generally take forever to get in. Jumping in was THE WORST part about lifeguarding and I chose back crawl whenever I could while I was on a swim team.

So when our Swimming Holes We Have Known road trip landed on the edge of the Gatineau River, I was all set to take the ladder in. It was cold and grey and we had been driving for hours and needed to eat something that wasn't wine gums/IKEA chips – there was no time for my ladder-taking shenanigans. Laura stood on the dock and insisted we hold hands, all four of us, and counted down from three. I had no choice. I jumped.

I didn't love it, but I did it. And it was really the only way to get into the freezing cold river.

The next day, I still wasn't convinced I was a jumper-inner. That was a one-off, that pre-dinner dock jump. Except our wonderful host and Swimming Holes We Have Known Quebec correspondent, Patrice, REALLY wanted to jump off a cliff. All the kids in the area do it and she decided it was her summer to join them.

Rhya went first because she is fearless and brave like nobody's business. And she went in from the second-highest point. Patrice went next, taming those butterflies and brave as all get out. I wasn't ready for the second highest rock. I could do the lowest one, I decided, my heart pounding in my throat. It took a few countdowns before I could do it, but I did. I jumped! And it wasn't as shocking or bracing or terrifying as I had thought. It was even exhilarating.

Taking the rope up the rock was fun (I felt like a kid!), and then after watching an 11- and 10-year-old launch themselves off the rock with abandon, I decided to try the second highest point. It was less fun – a bit too much air time for me, but I did it and I am now officially a jumper-inner.

Who has time for ladder lingering when there is swimming to be done...

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Laura:


Let me preface this by saying that those close to me who are familiar with my fear of falling have always been impressed by how loudly – and how many times – I can scream during one jump, or during one amusement park ride. So... historically, a cliffjumper I am NOT.

I think the last time I jumped from a great height was when I was 16 years old and visiting my cousins in Texas. I don't remember the particulars of it, only that I stood for a Very Long Time looking over the precipice working up the nerve to take the leap, and that when I finally hit the surface, pretty much every part of my body that touched the water did its own spectacular and individual version of a bellyflop.

So when Patrice proposed that we jump off the cliffs alongside the Gatineau River, my inner child threw a wee tantrum and I trudged quietly up the hill at the back of our little swim-pack, content to let the others go first and wondering if there was any way I could get out of it.

But my turn came. There was no pressure (the courage of these lovely women was all I needed). And I jumped.

It wasn't so bad. I can't say that I will from here on be an official cliff jumper, but I DID earn my adult swim badge for Cliff Jumping, for which I am pretty darn proud... so who knows? We'll see where the swim-ventures lead.

*SEE NEW UPDATES BELOW!!!! The fanmail keeps coming!*

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Original Post: July 15, 2016:

I have THE best people in my life.

Last summer, one of my early swimming hole posts here on this blog featured a photo that my friend Carmen took of me at her pond, the Schoolhouse Riviera. I was about to undo my hairdoo to jump in. It's a wonderful, arty, dancey kind of shot. Can't plan this kind of thing. It's just a moment.

I had no idea that this was the shot that would inspire a knockoff, let alone a series.

Instigated first by my clever friend Rob... these started showing up oh-so-subtly on Facebook and Instagram and other places I would bump into them.

I laugh so hard looking at them.

And I feel, weirdly, just SO HONOURED. It's the best.


********


Side Note: incredibly it was almost a year ago that we 3 swimmers started this blog. Today we are embarking on our FIRST EVER group road trip together. We're going RIVER SWIMMING in Gatineau with another dear one. So many of our favourite things all in one weekend. I'm so excited I might burst.

Stay tuned for the Road Trip Report!

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UPDATE JULY 29, 2016:

The fanmail keeps a-coming... from all across Canada...



UPDATE AUGUST 7, 2016:

And now all the way from Texas too!




UPDATE SEPTEMBER 8, 2016:

And a few more...!




 xo Lo

The August Long Weekend is HERE! What better time to release The 2016 Docktail Report -- just in time for your pre-weekend preparations.

I've been collecting my inspiration for this year's Docktail list for several weeks now, trying them out on friends and family. We 3 swimmers + one special guest star taste-tested a few on our recent river swimming road trip, and our resident connoisseur Rhya (aka Lady Beer Goggles) gave them the thumbs up.

If you need to review the original guidelines for what makes Docktail Hour truly special, you can refer to last year's report here.

Without further ado, I give you the 2016 Docktail Report:

The Blender Contenders

Given my inclination to be Fancy whenever possible, this year's list features TWO docktails that require special equipment -- but it's just a good old basic blender, so don't worry. Not THAT fancy.

1. Boozy Rosemary Watermelon Lemonade


My experience with this one is that you have to make sure the bottom of the blender jar is screwed on tight, or else you will have to re-squeeze all the lemons. Ahem. I swear I was not already drunkety when this happened.

You have to prepare a little bit in advance for this one -- make the rosemary simple syrup in the morning so it has time to steep and cool, go have a swim and some dock time while you wait, and then bust it out with the first round of snacks in the afternoon.

Here's the recipe. It's a winner. Lots of points for colour. Extra points if you have fancy straws.

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2. Summer Sangria Slushie


I couldn't find a bag of frozen white peaches, but I did find a bag of frozen peaches + mango + strawberries, and it produced this beautiful pinky-orange colour. The Littles were on hand to help push the blender buttons, and they got kid-friendly slushy docktails in Star Wars cups for their efforts.

Here's the recipe. This was delicious, and the icy-cold factor was a hit on the very hot day we made this. Tell your mom to go slow. This tastes like a delicious popsicle, but packs a punch!

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Pink is My Favourite Colour

3. Frosé!


Last year's list included just plain old rosé, but the game got upped when both Vogue Magazine and Bon Appetit declared Frosé the Drink of the Summer.

Frozen Rosé. What could be more magical, am I right? You need some freezer space to be able to pull this one off.

Here's the recipe. Thanks to my cousin Ike's ladybird Erica for being the mixmaster & photographer on this one.

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20 Points for Travellers

4. Dark & Stormy in an Adult Sippy Cup


What better way to greet 3 swimmers arriving on a road trip than with perfect Dark & Stormies -- IN TRAVELLERS!!! Reason #1,798 why I love these ladies is that they introduced me to the Adult Sippy Cup.

Arrive, unpack the car, get swimsuits on, walk to the dock with drink in hand, spill NOTHING, jump in, get out, and enjoy this classic cocktail on the dock. Rum, ginger beer and lime wedges. So simple. So yummy.

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A New Spin on a Classic



5. The Piano Piano G&T

Soon after it opened, I started hearing rumours about the G&T at Victor & Nikki's new Toronto restaurant, Piano Piano. Rumour had it that the G&T was OFF. THE. CHARTS.

So I went to find out what the fuss was all about, and it turns out their bartender Jeff Carroll makes his own Tonic Syrup. And so you mix a bit of that with a bit of gin and a bit of fresh lemon and a bit of soda. And boy oh BOY is it good. Best part about this story is that you can BUY a bottle of his Tonic Syrup and make them at home. I think Tonic Syrup is a thing now, so you can find it around, but if you have a chance to get the one made by Carroll & Co., I recommend it.

I did get it, and I took it to the Catskills to have on Bobcat Mountain, at my favourite pond in the world.

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That's it! Don't forget the potato chips. Or a plate of crackers and stinky cheese at the fancier swimming holes.

Either way, CHEERS!

I have yet to meet a woman who even REMOTELY likes shopping for a new swimsuit.

It is THE thing that is worse than shopping for jeans. Which is also terrible.

Swimsuit shopping is a Great Sucker of Time. It is a Self-Esteem Sabotage Activity. It is frought with Memories of Teen Angst. It can be downright Panic Inducing. It almost always requires a bag of chips and/or glass of wine to wallow in afterwards.

I'm still not really sure I want to talk about this, but I always find I feel better when I talk about things and find out that everyone else is thinking basically the same thing, so here goes.

You know how sometimes you go on a little trip, and you find out in advance that there's a swimming hole there (a pool, a pond, a lake, a river hole, a moat, a sea), and you pack your bathing suit and have grand daydreams of what your swims will be like?

And then you get there, and you don't go in.

Maybe it's raining. Maybe it's freezing.

Maybe the water looks gross. Maybe there are jellyfish. Maybe there are leeches (horror).

Maybe it's your time of the month and you are eating EVERYTHING and there is NO WAY IN HELL you are putting on a swimsuit.

Maybe you stand on the second rung of the ladder looking at the water for about 25 minutes and then decide, after all, that you really don't feel like it. Docktail instead. Maybe a hammock ride.

There are a lot of legit reasons to not go in.

I have just returned from England, where I lived in a castle that I waited THREE YEARS to go live in (a bona-fide 16th C castle, the very same one that Lady Jane Grey lived in before she became Queen and they chopped off her head. It's much nicer now, I swear.)

Three years gives you quite a long time to daydream up some pretty elaborate swimming hole plans. Add to that the fact that sometime last fall, we three swimmers found out about the English PHENOM called Wild Swimming, so my imagination went nuts. I was going to be a Full-On British Swim-Venturer.

I packed my favourite black bikini top and the pink paisley bottoms that are a little fancy, because, you know, it was a CASTLE for pete's sake.

And then, at last, I was there. I walked from the castle over the bridge across the moat through the cow pasture and underneath the big umbrella trees, and introduced myself to Astley Pool, a lake that has been around since at least 1501. 


And as soon as I got there, I knew.

No WAY was I going in there.

Astley Pool is picturesque, no doubt about it. It has watercolour & poetry potential in spades.

But the EW factor was way too high. There were lily pads. Like, thousands of them. Which means (in my mind) that there were probably long dangling tendrils tangling up the water underneath, ready and willing to catch your feet and drag you under. There were FOR SURE leeches in there, and probably a few seaweed creatures with dinosaur teeth. Maybe a few unsolved 16th C crimes of passion hidden in the depths, and to be honest, the ducks looked kind of aggressive. 

Anyway, I didn't have to linger long, deciding whether to go in or to not go in. Somewhere up at the castle, Pimm's Cups were being made and a nap was calling my name.



This is Astley Castle. Wonderful place, even without a swimming hole.

I look forward ALL winter to summer in Ontario.

Summer in Ontario is Cottage Season, with a Capital Awesome.

It's kind of a badge of honour to see how early in the season you can jump in the lake. April is for crazy people. May is for daredevils. June is for lake lovers. July is for my Mom.

So this weekend when I went up to Bone Island in Georgian Bay, I was feeling all madcap and audacious as I prepared for my Big First Jump. Mid-flight between dock and water I let out a big yelp, bracing myself for the polar-bear shock.

To my complete and utter delight though, the water was INCREDIBLE.

Instead of shivering and cursing while racing across the dock for a big Hudson’s Bay towel to wrap up in, I stayed in. I swam. I STARFISHED. I daydreamed about how great this summer is going to be.

It was the best first jump in, ever. I can’t wait for more. 

Last night I went to see an art film installation called Pools… it was a film about a swimmer, and it was screened IN a pool. Like, they actually drained the water and put in a projection screen and a bunch of chairs and we all sat on the bottom of the pool and watched the film.

It’s amazing to me how many people make art about swimming.

We 3 swimmers are all currently drooling over one of our favourite artists, Lisa Congdon’s new illustrated book called The Joy of Swimming, and for many months now, we have been collecting and posting some of our favourite swimming art on our Pinterest board.

Our respective homes have been filling up with new pieces for our collections, and it's an ongoing thrill to see other blogs, like the Jealous Curator, feature some phenomenal swim art. I am currently OBSESSED with the work of Slovakian photographer Mária Svarbová.

The thing about this film I saw last night was that I was actually swimming through someone else's eyes... the artist went to some beautiful pools in London and Finland and Iceland with a GoPro camera strapped to his bathing cap.

And so, through the lens of this other person cutting their way through the blue, I turned my head when he did, I breathed when he did, I bobbed up to see the view of the old lady in the pink bathing suit at the end of the lane when he did. And I marvelled at how different his hands finished his strokes from how I do mine.

There was a little turn of the wrist that I don't do.

He doesn't breathe out bubbles the way I do.

He looks around at the bottom of the pool differently than I do.

It was an interesting experience, this borrowed, goggled viewpoint.

I felt a little seasick by the time the lights went up and I was happy to gulp in the spring night air on my bike ride home. It was then that I realized that it was the first time I have ever been in a public pool without my bathing suit on.*