See, I'm the opposite about lakes. They creep me out. Of course, the cold is a factor that rules them out for me anyway. But if they were warm ... well, that would make the creepy factor of all the icky life even ickier.

Not that I wouldn't enjoy swimming in a lake, and I have. And I'm not worried about the water being contaminated by the life within. Just the imaginary teemingness of lake life sorta bugs me to be part of it.

When it comes to swimming the colder the water the better (last time I swam was in the Merced river on the Yosemite valley floor in mid-May - pure snow melt) so far as I'm concerned. Which is why next year current plan is to the first time take a vacation where swimming will play a significant part of the trip. Things go right, sometime next summer I'll be swimming at least for a few minutes in the Arctic Ocean.

The lakes Michigan, Superior, and Eerie seemed much cleaner than most oceans I've been in. Of course, that was in the early eighties and up northwards.

The only place I have swam that creeped me out was in the Amazon. Otherwise, I'm fine as long as I don't have to touch the squishy bottom with my bare feet when I can't see the bottom any more.