From shark-infested beaches to bursting bodies of water, today we look at Places You Should
Never Go Swimming.
#9 The Strid Along the Yorkshire countryside, an English
river carries on through mossy stones and grassy meadows like a babbling brook straight
from a storybook.
But this is no mere creek or stray stream as this area known as the Bolton Strid connects
directly to the River Wharfe, a wide channel of rushing water.
So what happens to that strong current in the Strid?
It aims down!
The horizontal currents that pull the water of the River Wharfe downstream become vertical
as a series of waterfalls and slopes cause the water to calm on the surface but flow
swiftly downward beneath it.
This has resulted in shelves forming underwater that act as traps for any creatures or people
that should be so unlucky as to get pulled under the current.
No one knows how many have been taken by the Strid, but local legend says no one has ever
gone into the Bolton Strid and walked out alive.
#8 Hoover Dam Standing along the border between Arizona
and Nevada at more than 725 feet tall, the towering man-made Hoover Dam is responsible
for the creation of Lake Mead, a reservoir formed from the Colorado River.
This impressive structure has amassed its share of casualties since its creation.
During its construction, 96 industrial fatalities were reported with dozens more lacking evidence
of direct correlation to the job.
In the past decade alone, more than 275 people have perished at the dam, falling victim to
its 10 powerful, hydroelectric turbines.
One individual, however, narrowly survived the swim in recent years.
One August day in 2017, 28-year-old Aaron Hughes of the United Kingdom decided to go
for a dip during the celebration of a friends bachelor party.
In the span of 30 minutes Hughes swam from the Colorado to the Nevada side of the river,
all the while fighting a swift undercurrent.
It wasn’t until he arrived on the opposite beach that he learned all but one of the dam’s
turbines had been turned off that day!
Hughes was lucky, becoming the first living man to swim that close to the Hoover Dam and
escape with his life...plus a $330 fine from local authorities.
Besides Hoover Dam, other dams can have large bellmouth spillways with extremely strong
currents that can suck a person into them.
It’s safe to say you should never swim near a dam.
#7 New Smyrna [smur-nuh] Beach On the central east coast of Florida, the
city of New Smyrna [smur-nuh] Beach is one of the most popular surf spots on the East
Coast.
It is also the shark attack capital of the world, with the surrounding county of Volusia
[vuh-loo-shuh] tallying up an approximate 10% of last year’s global shark attacks.
Though many reasons may account for the high amount of attacks here, scientists have an
idea as to what in particular is to blame.
The most obvious possibility is that sheer numbers are at fault, with a relatively small
beach often playing host for up to 300 surfers on a given day.
Experts estimate that anyone who has swam on the New Smyrna [smur-nuh] Beach coast has
probably swam within 10 feet of a shark.
That being said, unlike the treacherous depths of the Pacific Ocean, the Atlantic doesn’t
hide any 30-foot Great White nightmares.
Instead, much smaller sharks tend to make up the predatory field of the East Coast and
all of the shark attacks in Volusia [vuh-loo-shuh] County last year were non-fatal.
#6 Bubbly Creek Within the boundaries of Chicago city limits,
separating Bridgeport and McKinley Park, Bubbly Creek froths and pops with menacing consequence.
Liquid proof of the evils of irresponsible industrialization, this portion of the Chicago
River is as historically important as it is disgusting.
In the midst of the 19th century the wetlands surrounding what would be known as Bubbly
Creek was utilized as an open sewer for local stockyards.
Along though with the mass amounts of unregulated livestock droppings, butchers and meatpackers
would use the area to as a dumping ground.
As the meats began to decompose below the creek’s surface, methane and hydrogen sulfide
began to bubble up, polluting the water as well as the air around it.
The creek became so wretched, so quickly, that the stream became a talking point in
1906 in Upton Sinclair’s famous investigative criticism of America’s meatpacking industry,
the novel The Jungle.
Today, attempts to restore and oxygenate the creek have been made, however through contamination
and damage to sediments within the water may very well keep the Bubbly Creek bubbly for
a little while longer.
#5 Exploding Lakes With the number of world-ending movies that
have hit Hollywood over the years, it’s fairly normal to think oneself an expert on
natural disasters.
But the Jerry Bruckheimers and Michael Bays of the world didn’t tell us about exploding
lakes.
Formed from waters saturated with gases, the few reported exploding lakes, or limnic eruptions,
have shown high amounts of carbon dioxide as the main component.
The effects of the carbon dioxide in the water resemble that of a can of soda, with the high
pressured areas of these lakes keeping the carbonation at bay until something triggers
a release in pressure.
In lakes, where pressure is greatest in the deepest points, this means the carbon dioxide
is held deep beneath the surface.
But unlike a can of soda, there’s no tab to puncture and release the pressure.
Instead, something as slight as a temperature change in the water can trigger it, causing
a massive eruption and creating a cloud capable of literally suffocating nearby organisms.
Two examples of limnic eruptions occurred in Cameroon during the mid-1980s, with nearly
40 casualties the first time and almost 1,750 in the second incident.
These mysterious tragedies left scientists puzzled, but tests and research finally led
to the discovery of these highly concentrated gas lakes.
In addition to suffocating clouds of carbon vapor, scientists found these explosions may
even be responsible for tsunamis due to the sheer amount of displaced water.
After some time, preventative measures were taken to try and degas the lakes and prevent
future explosions.
Large pipes now exist in the known exploding lakes to vent any dangerous gases that might
otherwise permeate the water.
Some scientists, however, don’t believe these pipes vent enough gas to truly prevent
another limnic eruption.
#4 Berkeley Pit In 1955, a company known as Anaconda Copper
opened a large copper mine in Butte [byoot], Montana.
The Berkeley Pit, an open pit copper mine, was built and expanded to a whopping 1,780
feet deep, and measured one mile in length and half a mile wide.
But it closed in 1982 on Earth Day and, once nearby water pumps for another mine were turned
off, began to fill with groundwater.
At a rate of one foot of water per month the mine became an acidic lake as the water has
shown pH levels similar to citrus juice or soda.
This, in turn, led to the stripping of minerals from within the mine, saturating the water
with dangerous chemicals from elements such as arsenic, cadmium, copper, sulfuric acid
and zinc.
As a result, the Berkeley Pit has garnered a lot of government focus as one of the most
polluted sites in the United States in need of treatment.
You can currently go visit the pit for $2, just don’t get too close.
No people have been documented as having been injured or worse by the pit, but geese have
attempted to sit in its waters or turn to it for shelter only to suffer a gruesome,
copper-coated fate in return.
#3 Lake Karachay In 1948, hidden from a belligerent outer world,
Soviet Russia finished construction on what would be the first reactor used to create
plutonium for the communist state.
The focus of the project at the time was to match the American supply of weapons and technology,
a directive motivated by the incidents in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Due to the sense of urgency tied to the project, environmental and worker safety precautions
were thrown to the wayside.
The plant itself over-produced plutonium and used an open cooling system, causing most
everything, including thousands of gallons of water being used as an air conditioner,
to be contaminated.
A large natural lake nearby called Kyzyltash [kiz-zil-tash] provided most of the water
for the cooling system, while the smaller Lake Karachay was designed as a temporary
radioactive dump.
Millions have fallen ill with radiation sickness due to Lake Karachay and it is currently recognized
as the most polluted place on Earth.
The high levels of radiation surrounding the lake are so strong that even 30 minutes near
the wrong shore could prove fatal.
Nearby populations have reported up to 65% of the population suffers from chronic sickness
as contaminated materials have made their way into the sediments of not only these lakes
but local rivers as well.
Even the dust of Lake Karachay has shown to afflict the public as half a million people
were irradiated due to drought in 1968.
In an attempt to offset the spread of this pollution, the lake has been filled with concrete.
So whether you’re avoiding nuclear waste or afraid of diving onto concrete, there’s
really no good reason to go anywhere near this Lake Karachay.
#2 Eagle’s Nest Sinkhole The idea of diving head-first into a giant
sink may give you the heebie-jeebies, with the inescapable visual of massive sewer pipes,
but it’s not the gunk and grime that should scare you.
It’s the treachery of the naturally forming, twisting pipelines responsible for diver fatalities
around the world that you need to watch out for.
And no sinkhole is quite as terrifying as Eagle’s Nest in West-Central Florida.
With the above-ground appearance of a local pond, the murky depths lie in wait of courageous
divers undeterred by past cave casualties.
The cave itself is an advanced dive reaching more than 300 feet in depth.
Its complex system of branching tunnels that twist and turn back on itself has caused many
divers to experience issues getting out.
More than ten victims have fallen in this particular sinkhole, with the most recent
loss taking place in 2017.
Needless to say, it is not advised to swim here alone...and especially not too deep.
#1 The Boiling Lake Putting your hot tub to shame, this bubbling
body of water is capable of heat measurements of 197 degrees Fahrenheit.
Located in Dominica’s World Heritage site, the Morne Trois Pitons National Park, the
Boiling Lake is actually a gas-and-steam-emitting cleft in the Earth’s crust called a fumarole
[fyoom-uh-roll].
Having been flooded, the waters of this boiling basin constantly froth and foam with the heated
gases that rise to the surface.
These hot fumes erupt from a volcanic source beneath the island, a common origin point
for various geysers and volcanic areas found throughout the rest of the National Park.
These gases are so dense, in fact, that visitors to the lake are warned to keep their distance
as even a close proximity to the lake can prove fatal due to asphyxiation