Swimming?

[simply-juniper.livejournal.com]

Where can one go swimming around here? I have a car and am willing to travel up to 30 minutes outside the city. Usually we go to Walden Pond or Revere Beach, is there anywhere else? No pools please, I prefer natural places meant for swimming (clean lake, ocean, pond). It'd also be nice to know if there's a fee to get in.

Thanks!

Comments

[dancingdeer.livejournal.com]

On a bike ride yesterday, we passed a public swimming beach in Winchester, part of the mystic river reservation.
http://www.mass.gov/dcr/parks/metroboston/mystic.htm

[simply-juniper.livejournal.com]

Cool, thanks!

[dancingdeer.livejournal.com]

Also just found this link, which looks like it could be very useful:
http://www.boston.com/travel/newengland/beaches/summer/livereport/

[simply-juniper.livejournal.com]

Oh, excellent. Thank you!

[seaweedgirle.livejournal.com]

I believe it's called Sandy Beach. A great place!

[ert.livejournal.com]

Yep, it's Sandy Beach. Don't know how it's doing these days, but three years ago it was the only place along the Mystic deemed safe enough to swim in (it's also the only public swimming beach in the Mystic River watershed), while the rest of the river was having water quality problems. I also noted that the Aberjona river, known for the Aberjona superfund site (http://yosemite.epa.gov/r1/npl_pad.nsf/51dc4f173ceef51d85256adf004c7ec8/25001afe0850c69a8525691f0063f701), empties into the Mystic nearby. They test the water at Sandy Beach on Thursdays (http://www.mysticriver.org/newsletters/4-05_newsletter-FINAL.pdf), and it was closed for six days in 2004 for water quality problems.

I never really felt too safe about the idea of swimming there, and never heave, despite the fact that I lived really really close to it for two summers.