👨👩👧👧 Mandatory Family Swimming Day 🏊♀️ Phnom Samkos Wildlife Sanctuary, Cambodia 🏞️
We have a new favorite swimming spot near our house, and today I became a dictator and imposed a mandatory family swim day, no refusals accepted.
👨👩👧👧 Nature Recharges Us 🔋
Everyone but my wife has been to this swimming spot a few times already, but we've only ever been in pairs, me with Monkey-B or Monkey-B with her sister. Srey-Yuu wants to learn how to swim, but every time I've ever invited her to go for a dip and practice she's turned the opportunity down. Getting my wife in the river is equally rare, only a handful of times in the last year.
Monkey-B almost never turns down an opportunity to go swimming with me, but on this day I wanted to have a "family experience," so I had to dawn my dictator character that doesn't take no for an answer. Instead of asking my family if they wanted to go swimming together after lunch I simply stated that all 4 of us are going swimming today, and no refusals will be granted. Surprisingly everyone went along with my idea for a little mandatory fun.
🌊 Walk On Water 🪨
At this spot there is gigantic slab of rock that is always just a few inches under the surface, and from the right angle it can't be seen, making for a nice optical illusion. The rock narrows the river and therefore this particular are is neck-deep for me, the deepest section of the river near our house, so it's ideal for swimming. When the water is neck-deep at our house it's also flowing at breakneck speeds and there is often a lot of sediment too, not exactly ideal.
It doesn't get much better than this for me, and it makes me wish I had more time to actually enjoy the beauty of the place I call home. The ladies are a bit bored and want to travel during the Khmer New Year, but for me a vacation would be to go to bed at 8pm for a week straight and spend less time working on the computer and more time in the water. If they choose to visit Battambang or Siem Reap, I'll stay here and try to finish cleaning up the property and staining our deck and fence.
Slo-Mo Opportunities 🎞️
Swimming and splashing always make for good video footage, and that's why I took a couple slo-mo clips for the thumbnail and the one of Srey-Yuu below. I took a few regular videos too, but because we have to pay per MB for internet data, my 3Speak days are on hold until something changes.
The biggest surprise of the day is that my wife can now swim, something clicked in her brain and now she's got a bizarre dog paddle technique that works. A few more swimming trips and she'll be cutting the water like an otter, and my two daughters are 80% of the way there. I've been teaching them how to float on their backs and float with rapid deep breaths. They can do this already, so now we are slowly adding swim strokes to this technique. Panic is the enemy in water, so I feel if they know that no matter what happens they can always float, it will make being in the water less intimidating.
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It's super handy that you have such access within meters of your house. We're looking into getting my kids into swimming and because we live in a small city in Saskatchewan, it's basically only indoor pools that we can even think of taking them to... unless we want to drive an hour and a half (minimum - up to 3 hours away for our favourite spot). Anyhow, very cool to see everyone enjoying the water! I'm glad it's so handy for you folks!
Saskatchewan, burrrrrr, I can understand the need for indoor swimming. I am having flashbacks of my whitewater rescue technician course in Colorado many years ago. I think it was -20F and we were jumping into a river at 12,000ft with ice and snow everywhere to practice rescue attempts. It was the worst water experience of my life, no drysuit, just a farmer john wetsuit, almost cracked my teeth I was chattering so much.
I assume you have hot springs somewhere near you, I miss stuff like that. There's nothing going on geologically here in Cambodia, so no hot springs that I am aware of.
Yikes, that definitely sounds like a terrible experience! And yeah, we have some somewhat close - an hour or two drive away either north (for the Moose Jaw mineral springs) or south-east (for the Manitou Springs), though there are better options in Alberta for sure.
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For those of us who didn't learn swimming in swimming school or at a swim club, it's the first we learn. Fun fact: when I was in elementary school, my dad put us in vacation swimming classes, but I just couldn't get the hang of it. I think it was the panic and fear like you've mentioned. It was only years later when I calmly tried the techniques out and look what I remembered from it and I swam like an otter! Go figure! ahahaha
It's funny how that works isn't it, wish I could remember when it all clicked when I learned how to swim, but I was too young because my parents were putting me in pools since I was baby. It was very pleasing to see my wife finally get the confidence, so now it's just a matter of mastering the dog paddle stroke 😅.
Yeah, some of us got into swimming way earlier than others.
The earlier the better I think.
That slow mo monkey jumped out of water is marvelous. Both legs above water surface yo! The one at the bottom with srey-yuu, less impressive. Well, she got a pair of long model legs now, perhaps catwalks will be more suitable 🤣
I told Srey-Yuu she hardly got any air with her jump. I refer to her legs as "ham hocks" these days because they are bigger than her mom's legs. If she can turn them into muscle she'll have a mean kick one day 😁.