N7OR -
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned that you said you "swam to it".
Perhaps if you read the earlier post of mine where I said
Finally, and probably most importantly - you should never, repeat never, plan that your retrieval technique is swimming out to the plane. You should always have a boat available for this. I've seen folks have to swim until they were out beyond their swimming capability due to a combination of their initial burst of adrenalin to get to their precious plane and a breeze blowing the plane ever further from shore. Never heard of a loss of life from this, but it seems like an unnecessary risk.
You would see that I completely agree with you and the comments from the original poster don't change my perspective at all. Safety first, last and always is the only way to go in this hobby/sport.