Sharks in the Pool

I wrote about this previously, but it was before I had a full understanding of the extent of my OCD and how it impacts my life. And it's funny so it bears repeating.

Probably one of my DUMBEST and most long-standing obsessions is swimming alone in a pool and worrying about being attacked by a shark. I KNOW. So dumb! But I have worried about this since...forever. If there are many people in a pool, I'm good, because duh, a shark wouldn't come into a pool with so many people. Why? No clue. But that's the rule. But if it's just me, or maybe one or two other people in the pool...paranoia. I check the pool obsessively to make sure a shark isn't sneaking up on me.

How would the shark get into the pool? The drains, duh. When I was younger and lived in Santa Cruz that seemed sort of plausible. They would swim from the ocean into a pipe that was in the sea, would swim up the pipe and pop out into the pool I was swimming in. Obviously. Once we moved to Indiana all quasi-rational explanations for how the sharks would get into the pipes was gone. But OCD isn't rational and doesn't need no stinking explanations so I just kept on believing I'd be attacked by a shark if I was alone in the pool.

I think this obsession stems from Jaws. I love the entire Jaws franchise, but watching Jaws in childhood apparently altered my brain permanently. I also went on the Jaws ride at Universal Studios when I was a kid and my parents didn't know I would be on the side exactly where the animatronic Jaws would come out to attack our boat. I about died when that happened. When I picture the shark that's going to attack me, it always looks like Jaws.

I also worry about sharks at the beach. But that's sort of normal-ish. Many people worry about sharks at the beach. Probably not as much as me, but I don't feel too weird about it.  

I turn 35 in less than a month and last week I was swimming alone at the pool at the gym and I was still worried a shark was going to attack me. This shit is ridiculous. But alas, here it is.

365: Labor Day Weekend

Had a fun day at Bidwell with Ange, Mom and Dale. Until Ange broke her finger. Womp, womp.

Sycamore Pool: Bidwell Park

Ange and I are both covered in very itchy, very uncomfortable poison oak. I woke up last Monday and my eyeballs were nearly swollen shut. It was not good to say the least. After a trip to (not so) Prompt Care I am on some high dose steroids and antihistamines and am starting to finally feel better. Ange is suffering through and is on the better side of things as well.

In our quest to find relief we decided to check out one of the local "swimming pools" in town. It's a tricky thing because the sun and heat and sweating makes it feel worse, but cold water makes it feel better. Luckily Sycamore Pool in Bidwell Park let us find relief with a perfect combination of factors. 

I must say, Sycamore Pool is pretty bad ass as far as pools go. It is actually a portion of Big Chico Creek that has been blocked by a dam and has a large concrete area that creates a pool-like atmosphere. It is of course filled with creek water instead of chlorinated water and it doesn't have heaters or filters or anything fancy, but because it is blocked at two ends it is cleaner and less treacherous than you would expect a creek to be. It is also GIANT. Much bigger than most community pools. It goes from a fairly shallow children's end to a fairly deep end before it returns back to the creek. 

The pool has to be cleaned weekly due to the build up of silt and gravel from the creek and the Friends of Bidwell page has a really great description of the process. We went on a Wednesday (the pool is cleaned on Thursdays) and it was definitely slick and a little icky feeling on the bottom of the pool. After going in and wallowing around in the algae and silt I opted to put my Tevas on and go back in. Much better. The best part is that it is in the middle of a park so there were lots of shady areas both away from the pool and in the pool (where trees were close to the edge of the pool) so we could stay out of the sun. And the water in Big Chico Creek even in the middle of summer is quite frigid so it felt wonderful on our itchy skins!  Oh, and like pretty much everything else in Chico that is awesome, the pool is FREE! Sweet!

Here are some pictures from the pool:

Swimming Holes!

The other day Ange and I took a drive through Bidwell Park and we noticed that there were several swimming holes located in the park. We had just been talking about how we'd love to go swimming so like a good researcher (or maybe a cautious chicken :)) we decided to do a little research on these swimming holes and then possibly check them out. Sadly the Bidwell Park website was pretty useless when it came to information about the swimming holes other than general "be careful" advice. Luckily I stumbled upon this cool blog post that gave a lot of detailed information about each swimming hole and after reading up on them we were ready to tackle some swimming!

We set out for Bear Hole to check out the place. We had our suits and Teva sandals as we had read that it was best to have shoes on to navigate the rocks. We ended up creeping on some girls walking down the path in front of us and they ended up leading us to probably the furthest end of Bear Hole which was just fine with us. There was a very tall concrete wall in between the natural rock walls that people appeared to like jumping off of into the water below. It was probably about a 20 foot drop (I'm terrible at eyeballing measurements) into the water below. 

Here is a picture from the top:

It is a big drop but what makes it even worse is that there are giant rocks everywhere! You have to have pretty good aim or you could jump right onto a giant boulder and break your legs in 87 places. We did not opt to jump off of this wall. BUT! I did get some crazy teenage boy to do it for me so I could video it. He was a little excited to get going so it wasn't as long as I would have liked, but you get the idea:

There were some "steps" that led down to the water. I use quotation marks because they really used to be steps but over time they have broken down a bit. The first few steps are pretty good and then they kind of morph into a rocky slide until you get to the bottom. Luckily I've reached a stage in my life where I don't care if I look like a idiot so I crab walked down the last half of the steps. Going back up was much easier!

Ange was thoroughly enjoying being a little mermaid in the water and I took a chance to snap a few pics of her swimming like a fish!

After about an hour and a half we decided to walk back towards the other end of the Bear Hole and see what other spots were available. There was a big section in the middle that was swamped by a lot of teenagers so we skipped that part. It is really a gorgeous area so we stopped to take some pictures of us enjoying our new surroundings!

We got to the other end of the Bear Hole where we discovered an area that had a low rock that you could jump off of into a decent size area with fewer rocks. The only problem was that you had to cross over a little area that had a really strong water flow. I used my long legs and muscles to create a human bridge to help Ange get across so she could check it out.

Once she got over she was excited and ready to leap off the rock into the cold water!

Overall it was an excellent day! We are so glad to be here and can't wait to explore more of Chico and the surrounding area. We really feel like we are in paradise! (And not the town, though it is close!)

Sharks!

I simultaneously love sharks (though not as much as unicorns) and am absolutely terrified by them. At one point in my life I thought I wanted to be a marine biologist and I wanted to specialize in sharks. Then I realized I lived in Indiana and that was probably unrealistic. Oh well. But I can still pretty much watch any show about sharks and be entertained for hours.

On the other hand, I am absolutely terrified of getting attacked by a shark. I blame JAWS. I watched Jaws at a young age and it has pretty much scarred me for life. Way to go DAD (he always let me watch inappropriate-for-my-age shows). Life in sunny California was never the same. For months after seeing Jaws I wouldn't even go into the water past my ankles. I was sure that Jaws was just ready to attack me and chew me up into a million bloody pieces. I've since moved past the ankle deep waters again but I am still 99.9% sure that I am going to be attacked by a shark every time I'm in the ocean. 

I shared this a month or so ago on Facebook but I also have an irrational fear of being attacked by a shark while swimming alone in pools. I KNOW IT MAKES NO SENSE. But still? Totally freak myself out when swimming alone. I just worry that they will somehow figure out how to navigate the water/sewer system and will be hiding in the drains waiting to pop out and chomp me to death while I casually swim laps. Yes, I know that sharks can't live in chlorine and that there is not a nice neat system of pipes that go from ocean to LA Fitness pool and that the sharks I am imagining are much larger than the drains in the pool. That's why it's called irrational. And I admit that it's dumb. And I try really hard not to get scared but it still happens. C'est la vie.