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No swimming in the Charles tomorrow, at least not legally
By adamg on Fri, 06/16/2023 - 3:01pm
The Charles River Conservancy has announced its canceled tomorrow's City Splash swim event at the Esplanade due to forecast "heavy rain and potential thunderstorms" that would make swimming unsafe.
The group had set Sunday as its rain date, but it's been forced to cancel that as well, because all the rain Saturday could mean unsafe levels of potentially harmful microorganisms via pipes that still drain into the river.
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Comments
Is it illegal to swim in the river at other times?
I always assumed that it was always legal, you just wouldn't want to in most circumstances.
I don't think it's illegal
I mean there was that guy who dropped his phone off a dock last year? And he didn't get in trouble except for maybe a finger wag.
tbh I've never heard of anyone getting 'in trouble' for swimming in the charles specifically. I think you'll just get alot of finger wags from people for the most part.
And besides who would want to. I guess it's 'safe' to swim in, its the bottom muck that the MassDEP doesn't want you stirring up which where the 'bad stuff' is. I mean if moving around some decaying leaves and muck at the bottom is enough to bring up some nice toxic stuff, I'm all set with swimming in the Charles.
Seems as though
CRC just doesn't want to get sued under current insurance once the fecal matter increases
Oh rats, I was looking forward to this.
I did it in 2018, it was cancelled for poor water quality after heavy rains in 2019, and I was signed up for this one, it was to be my first open water event since a trip and fall accident I had in September of 2019 resulted in serious injury to both knees and put me out of commission for a few months (and then there was this pandemic thingie right after I finished PT).
While I don't blame them at all for canceling it, and at least I won't have to get up at 6 AM or make sure my wetsuit still fits (I wouldn't have bothered if it was going to be warmer than the current forecast), but I wish the Charles River Swimming Club had posted this on its website, I've been checking all afternoon (long after this story was posted) and as of the time I'm posting this it still says:
I only found out after navigating from that site to here. (though I wonder if participants will still get shirts, hi-viz caps, and other swag).
And I just realized..
...after writing that post, that City Splash -a different event- was canceled, not the Charles River Swim, (though I won't be surprised if it is canceled). Time to go make sure the ol' wetsuit still fits, just in case.
There are or were two different swims?
A friend did one of them a few years ago.
I want to do it too. Maybe next time.
Basically yes
The Charles River Swim (which took place at 8AM today), is a one mile US Masters Swimming sanctioned competitive open water swim held in the morning, and then City Splash, which is just jumping off the dock and into the water and splashing around, etc, is in the afternoon, from the same area. They test the water the night before the event to see if it's okay, last night everything checked out, so it went ahead. Had it rained overnight or if it looked like it was going to rain during the event, it probably would have been canceled, but it went ahead. It rained a tiny little bit just as I was leaving, but I was able to walk home without donning my waterproof windbreaker. Also, while City Splash was cancelled, a water polo team set up its nets and played a demonstration game after the open water swim.