By Ned Steele
“Meet me at Blue!” is the rallying cry of a hardy band of swimmers who brave temperature extremes, choppy surf and early-morning hours to gather for a group swim in the Gulf off Siesta Beach.
Blue, of course, is the blue lifeguard stand, and it’s where 20 or more swimmers show up three mornings a week at the bracing hour of 7 a.m. to plunge into the tangy sea and swim offshore en masse for about 1.2 miles.
Then, back on the sand, come the refreshments and the socializing. This is a group of friends as well as athletes.
Meet Me at Blue, as they call their group (its private Facebook page has more than 1000 followers) has been doing it for about 11 years, and they see no need to stop now.
“You don’t swim alone” if you’re a long-distance open water swimmer, said Nicole Buckley, the group’s unofficial den mother, as an explanation for why they do what they do.
They’re out there in August, when the weather – and the water – are steamy (at a slowed pace to avoid overheating.) They’re there (mostly in wetsuits) in January when water temperatures dip into the 50s. They’re out there on their birthdays – because the group will gather at one of the buoys to serenade them with “Happy Birthday” in unison.
“We start at the blue stand, and we swim the buoy line to the northernmost buoy, past the flag and then back,” Buckley said. “Then we turn around and go back.”
The swim usually takes the group between about 35 minutes and an hour “depending on how much talking there is,” she added. (Yes, this crowd is so adept at swimming that they chatter while they paddle.)
Meet Me at Blue started when Buckley, then swimming seven days a week, asked a friend to join her. Soon, there were more friends: “It was very organic,” she recalled.
“I just started gathering people. I told them, ‘Meet me at blue,’” and the name stuck.
Open water swimming, as it’s called, is not unique to Siesta Beach. There are similar groups all over Florida, and beyond. Swimming being a universal sport, Meet Me at Blue is a democratic group: “We have the poorest of the poor, the richest of the rich. Bankers and housecleaners.”
Ages range from high school students to octogenarians: “The water doesn’t know your age,” Buckley said.
They’re not alone out there. They’ve seen – and swam with – dolphins, manatees, barracudas, tarpon and more. Buckley recognizes the dolphins and has a name for the regulars: “We know when a new calf has been born,” she said. The manatees show up in summer, sometimes approaching and even touching the swimmers.
Sharks? Yes.
“New swimmers always ask about that,” Buckley said. They’re out there, and “your heartbeat goes faster.”
Least welcome are the jellyfish. When they invade, they’re about the only thing that can keep the swimmers on land. That and a bad run of red tide.
The worst incident in 11 years of group swim came not from marine life but a swimmer who got clipped by a passing parasailing boat.
With all the beaches in the area, the group has chosen Siesta Beach because its sand bars provide a safety factor. “Swim ten strokes and you’re back where you can stand,” Buckley said, “if you need to get back to safety.”
Usually there’s no need for that – and the swimmers typically go in buddy pairs to keep things extra safe. Though, just in case, Buckley carries a loud whistle around her neck.
The social factor is key, and so is having fun. Aquarobics, water ballet, making videos, and “doing silly things with drones” are all part of the routine, Buckley said. “It’s about community.”
The group makes one annual concession to that brutal 7 a.m. start, and it just happened: Daylight Savings Time. Swimming in the dark isn’t safe, so in the first days of DST they started at 7:30 a.m. Gradually they’ve been inching back to 7:30 a.m. Meet them at Blue… they’ll be there.
