Swamp Thing

We went up to Eli's boss' cottage this weekend and I swam once in the lake. Typically, I love swimming in natural bodies of water but this lake was rather verdant. It looked quite pretty and clean, but smelled too green for my taste. Also, its primarily function seemed to be the use of motorized water sports -- jet skis, pontoons, motorboats -- rather than kyaking, sailing and swimming, and I was a bit paranoid about the amount of residual fuel that must be in a relatively closed water system.

I don't mind swimming with the odor of rotting kelp and dead fish mixed with salt water, but this just bothered me. I felt like the Swamp Thing when I emerged and, despite an initial rinse, I ended up putting my swim suit through the wash twice, since I swear I still smelled lake muck on it. The lake, Gravel Lake (although I saw no gravel), was surprisingly warm, which made me slightly suspicious. When I've swum in Lake Michigan all the way at the tippy top of Michigan state (not UP) with my friend Tony, the water was crystal clear and excruciatingly frigid, due to the cold springs that feed into the lake. I much preferred that -- I didn't feel like nasty bacteria and gasoline was working its way into my body's crevices.