Can you swim 2 miles across the largest lake in the planet? That is the question that Scott Armstrong and Larry Johnson ask the participants in the growing Point to LaPoint Swim participants every year in August as they traverse across Lake Superior.
The August 7th Point to LaPoint Swim to Madeline Island is 2 miles from Bayfield, Wisconsin to Madeline Island.
An entertaining video of the Point to LaPoint Swim is here.
Swimming to the Madeline Island has been a storied feat around the Bayfield area for decades. Starting with the Ojibwa, individuals of all levels of athletic skill have swum across the channel to LaPointe on Madeline Island. In 2006, the Friends of the Recreation Center sponsored a swim where 23 of 24 people made it across on a day with flat water and sun, raising US$6000 for a local swimming pool. The race has consistently grown every year while the swimmers have encountered Lake Superior's moods over the years: from calm, flat water to 15-20 mile per hour crosswinds and 2-foot waves.
Copyright © 2010 by Steven Munatones
Great race, lots of fun. Made it two years in a row without a wetsuit...this year, I will suffer through the race in a wetsuit.
ReplyDeleteHa! Good luck everyone.