Swimming in St Johns River, FL...?

Triathlon Forum
1

Im heading down to FL this friday and would like to get an open water swim in, does anyone know if you can swim in St Johns river?

thanks in advance

2

I wouldn’t recommend it. Not that I have any specific reasons…I used to live there, and never really heard of people swimming in the river (assuming you’re talking about the Jacksonville area). Check out the local tri club, the Hammerhead Race Team. Great bunch of people. I checked their site, and they’re having a training race this weekend, the “Palm Valley Half.” It’ll be a group of people training through the half iron distance together, no race registration or anything like that to my knowledge. They’ll do a 1.2 mi open water swim in the ocean. Check out the site and contact the club president, Susan Wallis, if you’re interested. Good luck!

http://www.hammerheadtriathlonclub.com/news/hhrevents.asp#282

3

I would not do it, I live in Lake Mary area and went to school in Deland, there are a ton of gators in there
.

4

The river is flooded from tropical storm Fay I would not recommend swimming in it right now there is sewage, gators, snakes and who knows what else floating in the river.

5

Do the ocean swim instead, with the group.
I’ve swam the St Johns numerous times when I lived there, just south of Jacksonville.
Until, a neighbor took me out in a boat at night with a high powered light.
He shined it on the water and showed me dozens of glowing gator eyes looking back at us.
On another night trip, he showed me one particularly large gator they called “ole tail lights”.
I stopped the open water swims…

6

Do the ocean swim instead, with the group.
x2

7

Yeah. What the others said. Go to the beach and swim. Stay out of that nasty river. Who knows what is floating around in it after the flooding from Faye?

8

gators and poop no thanks!!!

Thanks everyone, pretty sure im gonna get a hold of the tri club instead.

9

Also as a north-Orlando resident I’d stay the hell away from that river. I’ve been boating on there and it has about the highest gator population in the state. Not to mention the trash, snakes and other crap from Fay (as mentioned above)…swim in the ocean instead! Cocoa Beach, New Smyrna, Cape Canaveral, there are tons of good ocean swimming areas.

10

damn! so u never saw them during the day?

11

Thats why this place is gold!

I’m military, stationed in south GA, i asked a co-worker what they knew about St johns, and they were like, (no gators, because of the salt/fresh water mix)

HA, glad i asked you cats!!!

12

“it has about the highest gator population in the state.”

Really? I’ve lived in the Jax area since '84, go boating all the time, and the only gators I’ve ever seen here were at Clarke’s Fish Camp trying to sneak up on a cat.

13

I have a few good reasons.

Within the past few years we have seen bright green algie blooms. Quite gross.

Also, I remember a story about a jet skiier who died from a bacterial infection she got from the river.

I overlook the river every day at work and its always gross. Never something I would want to swim in.