I've swam with gators! I grew up in southeast Georgia and we'd go swimming in Alligator Creek where people claim to have seen quite a few of them. I never saw any there. However, my grandfather has a couple of ponds over in some woods and I went swimming there one afternoon. He showed up a bit later when we were just fishing and asked if we'd seen the gators that afternoon. We hadn't but he said there was two good sized adults and he'd seen a few babies as well. I never went swimming there again!