Should CP extend the swimming ranges in Lake Erie?

So for the first time last summer in a long time I went on the beach at CP and went in the water. As I was going in the water I noticed how tiny the roped area that you are allowed to swim in was. Anytime you would go out of that area the lifeguard would blow their whistle at you. I think the area is WAY too small. What do you guys think? Should they make it bigger?

Well, the area is based on 1 - lifeguards and 2 - lawyers.

The lawyers say how many lifeguards are needed to watch a specific sized area, and Cedar Point determines how many lifeguards they want to pay at one time.

Apparently, Cedar Point only wants to put 1 guard on duty and so the lawyers have told them that that is the size they are allowed to operated. The park may also have found that not many people go swimming in the lake (it is Lake Erie after all) and so a bigger area is not needed.

Considering there are drunk captains hitting the breakwall, I'm not sure I'd even be swimming in that area of the lake to begin with. They do have 3 nice pools there, not to mention some good eyecandy.

No, why would you swim in Lake Erie? Eww!

Didn't Lake Erie catch on fire once? Now that you have swum in the Erie do you glow?

That was the Cuyahoga River, not Lake Erie. Incidentally, the river is many times cleaner than it was when that happened decades ago.

Still, think about it. Lake Erie is the second to last of the Great Lakes. When you swim in it, you are swimming in the combined treated effluent of Chicago, Milwaukee, Detroit, Toledo . . . ::shudders::

My daughter wanted to swim in it two years ago. I grudgingly went along with it, but you better believe we showered off thoroughly afterward.

I would hope to glow you have to be closer to Fermi 2 or Davis Besse - but hey - here's radiating at ya!

I'll give $500 to anyone who gives me a three eyed fish caught in that lake. I'll have it mounted to a board and hung on the wall in my boat.

JuggaLotus said:

The lawyers say how many lifeguards are needed to watch a specific sized area

Not so much the lawyers but rather Ellis & Associates. They are a lifeguard consulting firm that Cedar Point/Soak City uses for risk management. They decide how many lifeguards you need at a pool, where blind spots are at pools, determine how fast you need to get to a person, etc, etc. Very good program. The lifeguards are all trained by Ellis standards which are very high. Just about 80% of your major water parks in the U.S. are Ellis. Cedar Fair, Six Flags, Disney, Great Wolf, Schliterbahn, and so on.

Ellis has set standards for lake fronts. The size of the roped off areas (Zones) are something that wont change. They are designed so that if there is a missing child in the water, the whole zone can be scanned using a net in under two minutes. Any bigger and it would take longer to scan, thus giving the victim less of a chance for survival. The amount of zones is up to the facility (Cedar Point). Obviously the Cedar Point Beach does not get to crowded but if it were, they could have zones all up and down the beach. They currently have 3 but its not that often that all 3 are needed. Most of the time the beach is just there for the kids.

Anybody trained by an Ellis instructor is a good lifeguard. They have very high standards and are professional at all times. These are people you can trust your kids with.

There ya go. You all learned something today.

I have a CP platinum pass, and I swim in the hotel pools on-point, am I doing something I shouldn't be?

Soak City closes earlier then we would like sometimes, and we like a dip in the pool.

The pass has nothing to do with anything. Technically the resort pools are for resort guests only. Sometimes they do check for room keys but that hardly ever happens. Usually only when it gets real busy at the pools.

factory81 said:
I have a CP platinum pass, and I swim in the hotel pools on-point, am I doing something I shouldn't be?

Soak City closes earlier then we would like sometimes, and we like a dip in the pool.

Yes "YOU'RE STEALING". You've got to pay big bux to use those pools :-)

Actually, Lake Erie is reasonably clean. In fact, I seem to recall that the level of certain microscopic critters was actually too low at one point, threatening the overall balance of the ecosystem around the lake.

I read somewhere that zebra mussels are helping to improve the lake's water quality and clarity. Too bad it's an invasive species.

Yes the pesky Zebra mussel has improved the lakes's water and clarity... But at a serious price.

Vegetation is now growing in larger areas due to improved light transmission through the surface. I lose 1-2 props a year due to that, and my lower units need their gaskets replaced due to stray fishing line caught in the plant overgrowth.

We won't go into what they are doing to the civil infrastructure.

Pulling the bubbler out in the spring is also a chore as they seem to cover it like a bad herpes outbreak. A power washer does not usually get them completely loose from hulls/fittings and I need to scrape them off with a plastic putty knife.

Lake Erie around Cedar Point is fine for swimming. A big YES that the swimming areas on the beach are too small and somewhat of a joke.

The swimming area used to be big before the late 80's, you could go way out from the beach into about six feet of water. The beach was a lot of fun for body surfing when the lake cooperated with some waves coming into the beach.

If resorts on the ocean can offer deep water swimming to guests I see no reason why CP can't. I understand about little kids, they can have a young kids swim area that is compact in size for them. The beach is not one of Cedar Point's pools and they shouldn't treat it as such. Ellis & Associates need to be a little more imaginative and come up with something better than rounding people up into an area the size of a large fish tank.

As it stands now, the only way you can have a good experience swimming in the lake at Cedar Point is if you anchor your boat off the beach. That is a perfect area for that sort of thing.

I agree that it’s a joke as far as size goes. I have always wanted the swimming area to be “open swim” as you would find at a public beach on the ocean. But as long as Cedar Point has Ellis, they will have the zones. Ellis does have ocean front training but that is far more tough to put lifeguards through then what Cedar Point wants. It takes a lot more time and money, something we know CP won’t do for seasonals even if it means a better experience for the guest. Life guard training takes about a weekend. Ocean front (or Deep Water) training can take anywhere from 8 days to 3 weeks. Not something you want when you need employees fast. Not to mention that I am sure Cedar Point insurance loves the way they have it set up now with Ellis. There is just to much responsibility there with underpaid teenagers if it were open water.

The reason the Ellis lakefront program looks a little silly at Cedar Point is because its normally for small lakes. I’m talking a lake the size of Cedar Point its self or actually a lot smaller. Not the size of Lake Erie.

If it were open to swim farther out, Id be weary of the boaters. I know all the boaters on the lake aren’t like this but it seems the majority already disobey the boat buoys that are out there. Constantly coming in close to shore and at times on shore. I need both hands to count the amount of boats that have beached themselves after the owner swam ashore just in the past two summers. It seems that most boaters in that area are pretty careless. I know you have a boat Pete and I am not directing any of that to you. I have just had to many run-ins with boaters where I have had to get the police or Coast Guard involved. There have been to many close calls with swimmers and boaters off of Breakers Beach and that is with the swimming zones. I would assume to that if Cedar Point ever went to an open water swim, some sort of water patrol would need to be implemented. Something else I bet Cedar Point wouldn’t flip the bill for.

Wow, how often do these boats pull up THAT close to CP? People actually jump from the boats and swim ashore to the CP beach? I just read the marina/boating rules and it said you are not allowed to pull up to shore and beach your boats there......

I thought I had read somewhere that Ohio beaches are considered public property. If that were the case, how could Cedar Point lifeguards actually prevent you from swimming out of the zone, swimming from a boat to land, or any other legal behavior you wish to indulge in off shore? Somebody correct me if I'm way off base here.

I have seen a family get off a boat and swim to CP, walk in by TGI Fridays and proceed to presumably change clothes and enter the park.

They anchored off shore and swam in though.

Boaters often do that instead of docking at the Marnia like they are suppose to do. Its times like that when after the boater has left the boat, it will drift ashore either entering the swim zones or getting stuck on the sand.