Octogenarian swims across Lake Dunmore

SALISBURY — I did it! It was a “Super Swim” that I did across Lake Dunmore on Sept. 3, 2016, at the age of 82.5 years!
I had been thinking about doing it for a number of years because that’s the lake where I learned to swim in the late 1930s. My family has been coming to our camp at the Pine Needle on Beaver Pond Road every year since then.
It was a perfect morning for the crossing, with my son Peter and his wife, Clara, in a canoe to guide me on the right course from the outlet on the western shore near Waterhouses to the farthest end of Branbury Beach on the eastern shore. It took me an hour and 15 minutes to complete the approximately mile and a third distance. Some may still say that the lake is only a mile wide but that’s not quite accurate since I know from my weekly mile swims in our home pool it takes me just 53 minutes.
There’s another reason to rejoice in this event. Lake Dunmore water is the finest around. Where I live most of the year in retirement, I can’t find such clear and clean waters in the Virginia tidewater.
Vermonters can really rejoice and be glad in the pristine waters they can enjoy. Please keep them that way.
Editor’s note: David Benedict is a year-round resident of Williamsburg, Va., who spends some precious weeks each summer in Salisbury.

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