Donald Walsh would do well to sprout a pair of gills and trade in his hands and feet for flippers, because he spends about as much time in the water as he does on land.
However, the avid swimmer’s lungs, hands and feet seem to be doing the job just fine. The Jersey Shore native grew up in Manasquan, spending his childhood swimming in the Atlantic and working as a lifeguard during his adolescent years, with numerous rescues to his credit.
Along the way, Walsh’s love for swimming has led to him to accomplish some remarkable tasks — he has completed a 12.5-mile swim around Key West, Fla., a 21-mile swim down the river in Mays Landing, and twice swam the 28.5 miles around the island of Manhattan. In 2006, he became the first New Jersey native to swim around the Isle of Jersey in the English Channel, an astounding 41.5-mile trip.
Walsh said he even taught U.S. Navy Seals how to swim combat sidestroke.
But Walsh knows that not everyone can be as comfortable as he is in the water. “One summer in the late ’90s, we had 13 children drown after hours [on New Jersey beaches],” he said. “As a former lifeguard, I wanted to do something to help, so I thought that if I wrote a children’s book and parents read that book to their children, they could get educated in water safety.”
And that’s just what Walsh did.
His new children’s book, “Teach the Beach,” takes the reader on vacation with the Sands family. At the seaside, a brotherand sister duo meets a handful of safety-conscious aquatic creatures, including Ringo Starfish, who offers the novice swimmers some important advice.
“We go through a bunch of different situations [in the book, such as how to handle changes in] wind direction and rip currents, so people can be a little more confident when they get to the beach with their kids. It’s a children’s book, but it’s really for adults,” he said.
Walsh self-published the book last month, and it is available for sale on www.amazon.com or directly from the author at www.teachthebeach.net.
“If it saves just one child’s life, it’s worth it,” he said.