Two longtime buddies swimming each Vermont lake and pond

Sally Cummings and Jenness Ide are on a quest to swim each lake and pond in Vermont.

Using a discontinued Vermont Fish & Wildlife map of the state’s water our bodies, Cummings creates an inventory of the ponds they plan to swim. Each summer season, they log a mean of 10 swims.

Cummings, 75, of South Burlington, and Ide, 81, of Danville, have visited a minimum of two lakes each summer season since 2013.

They have swum in additional than 100 water our bodies thus far, with 63 left to go.

The concept started when the 2 reconnected of their hometown of Barre, reminiscing about summer season camp days from their youth.

Cummings had an concept: What in the event that they recreated these childhood adventures by swimming in every of Vermont’s ponds? Ide mentioned sure, and their journey started.

Along the best way, they’ve met toothless fishermen, type strangers and nudists, amongst different characters.

“Every swim has a story attached to it,” Ide mentioned.

The guidelines are easy: 10 strokes out and again. If there’s a floating dock, they have to swim to it. Cummings refers back to the added infrastructure as a “water park.”

For every swim, the pair takes a photograph and provides the date to a spreadsheet monitoring that 12 months’s swims. Their recordkeeping has expanded to incorporate an inventory of superlatives — most disappointing, most enjoyable, finest “water park” — and a photograph album for every year.

“Sally’s the one who made us document the lakes and take a photo,” Ide mentioned. “And I’m so grateful because lakes all look alike after awhile. And you think, ‘Oh, where the heck was that?’”

“It became clear to me early on that they were going to mush together,” Cummings added. “And we’d had so much fun meeting different people.”

One such event got here throughout an tour to Long Pond. After struggling to discover a seaside, they have been approached by a girl they later nicknamed “Lady Godiva.”

“I said, ‘Her bathing suit looks like plastic or something,’” Cummings mentioned. “It was a nudist colony.”

The lady informed them they have been welcome to swim there — “but you have to pay $35 for the day, and you have to take all your clothes off,” Cummings mentioned.

“Jenness looked at her and said, ‘Thank you very much. We won’t be doing that today.’ And away we went.”

Despite rising up collectively in Barre, the 2 weren’t initially shut. Ide, whose maiden title is Berg, was finest buddies with Cummings’ older brother.

They name themselves the BergCum Swim Club, a mix of “Cummings” and Ide’s maiden title. The title originated with the “BergCum Detective Agency,” which they fashioned in childhood to spy on older siblings.

Life finally took them in numerous instructions. Ide grew to become a nurse. Cummings joined the Peace Corps and later taught English as a second language to worldwide college students at St. Michael’s College.

They reconnected after assembly once more at a string of funerals and progressively started seeing one another extra typically.

“I was the little sister that was kind of a pest,” Cummings mentioned. “I wanted to grow up and be just like her. That was my dream.”

“Oh, yeah. And Sally is my idol now,” Ide mentioned.

“To have connected with her as an adult and be able to share our childhood, and also to be doing something together as adults that not all of our friends would care to participate in, but we love — I feel this strong connection to Jenness through this activity, which has been very special,” Cummings mentioned.

A spotlight for the 2 has been the kindness of strangers. When no public seaside is obtainable, they ask landowners for permission to entry the water, typically resulting in memorable encounters.

One lady gave them a loaf of banana bread after letting them use her dock. Others have supplied instructions or restaurant suggestions after granting entry to their waterfronts.

Some have even helped them observe down hard-to-find ponds. Cummings’ electrician, after listening to about one notably tough location, informed her he had a camp there and supplied instructions.

More typically, Cummings mentioned, individuals need to observe their instance.

“I wouldn’t say they want to help us,” she mentioned. “I’d say they want to emulate us.”

During a visit to Sunrise-Sunset lakes, the pair met a youthful duo of feminine swimmers. The two pairs exchanged tales and promised to remain in contact.

Friends and members of the family have additionally taken observe of the journey.

“Really, we shouldn’t have been surprised, as Sally has a history of adventuresome swimming,” mentioned Rick Cummings, her cousin, who accompanied the swim membership on a 2019 go to to Forest Lake.

“I’ve known Jenness Ide for over 30 years and have always admired her penchant for curiosity and exploration,” mentioned Maggie Lewis, Ide’s shut pal. “This adventure has kept Jenness even more young at heart than she already is.”

Cummings and Ide say lots of their buddies have began related quests — one visiting each unbiased bookstore in New Hampshire, one other each lined bridge in Vermont.

They don’t need the journey to finish. The endeavor has introduced them nearer as buddies.

“There’s something very special about it because I think we both have the same level of appreciation for what we’re doing,” Cummings mentioned. “It’s really solidified a whole different aspect to our friendship that never would have existed without it.”

Ide calls it “a lifetime project.”

“The fun is in the journey,” Cummings mentioned. “Yes, we have a destination — whatever lakes or ponds we’re looking to do that day — but getting there and getting to the next one and meeting the people along the way and seeing how beautiful Vermont is, that’s the joy for me.”

(Via Community News Service, a University of Vermont journalism internship on project from The North Star Monthly.)