Locals competing in eight-mile Boston Light Swim Saturday

The Boston Light Swim is not for the faint of heart. The water temperature can drop down into the 50s (depending on which way the wind is blowing), you can be bucking currents, and you don?t really have any protection against the elements.So why would anyone want to do it??For me, it?s just to see whether I can do it,” says Lynn?s James Haynes, who will join 24 other swimmers Saturday morning at Little Brewster Island for the eight-mile trek to the L Street Bathhouse in South Boston.Andrew Jones of Swampscott has another reason in the back of his mind.?I did one last year (Kingdom Swim in Lake Memphremagog on the Vermont-Canada border) to see if I liked long-distance swimming,” he said. “I?m doing this one to see whether I can handle cold water swimming.?If I can,” said Jones, a native of England, “I hope to swim the English Channel. I?ve never done it.”But he has a friend who has tackled it, and “she kind of got me into (salt-water swimming),” Jones said.Both Haynes and Jones swam as high school students, and both stopped along the way as life took over. In Haynes? case, it was law school — and the inactivity and habits that go along with it — that got him back into swimming.?My third year of law school, I started putting on weight,” he said. “Too much of hanging around and drinking beer with my friends. I started swimming again.”Jones? friend got him back into it.?She goaded me into long-distance swimming,” he said.Both eventually found their way to ocean swimming. Haynes started out by doing laps at the Marblehead YMCA “for about a year,” and then read an article in The Item on Lynn probation officer Kim Garbarino, who did the Boston Light swim three years ago.?That looked like something interesting,” Haynes said. “I started doing one-mile and two-mile races. This is the first year I?ve felt confident enough to enter this race. I would have done it last year, but I messed up my shoulder.”Shoulder injuries are the bane of swimmers everywhere. Like Haynes, Jones was out of action last year, with a rotator cuff injury.?(The race officials) were kind enough to give me a bye from last year and let me do it this year,” he said.Jones got hooked on the thrills of salt-water swimming after doing a couple of races in the Mediterranean Sea while still in England.?We?d go from island to island … it was really clear, warm water. That?s what got me hooked on it,” he said.The Boston Light race presents its own challenges. For one, the swimmers go by “Channel Rules,” which means no SCUBA equipment, or wetsuits, or any accessories beyond a little grease smeared on to provide some body protection.?In theory,” said Haynes, “it?s supposed to act as insulation. But what it does more than anything is protect the body form chafing. But most of the time, you put it on you and all it does is smear your goggles so you can?t see.”You are also at the mercy of the water and, as Haynes puts it, “inquisitive maritime life that might come looking for you.”Haynes says the race is structured so that the eight-mile swim is with the tide, as opposed to against it. But Jones cautions that all is not what it seems.?Maybe for the first half of the course you?re with the tide,” he said, “but it?s not so much of an advantage in the second half. You?re butting up against currents. When you get around Long Island, there?s either a cross current or a head-on current. And if the wind?s from the west, and it?s strong enough, then there isn?t an advantage at all. The west wind blows all the warm water out to sea, and the water can then get pretty cold.”Neither seems intimidated by cold weather or cold water.?I did one a few weeks ago at Nubble Light where the water had to go down to 52,” said Jones. “That was a beautiful swim.”?I?ve swum in November with water temperatures in the 40s,” said Haynes. “I?ve had friends who have swum in water colder than that, and there haven?t been any complications.”