Posted: Wed, 7 Jul 2010 03:18 PM - 20,241 Readers

By: Pam LeBlanc

I rediscovered the joys of skinny dipping a couple of weeks ago, when I stripped off my swimsuit and plunged into Lake Austin after an early-morning water ski session.

I promise I was discreet. Oh what a feeling!

For those who prefer their skinny dipping with lots of other like-minded folks, the Star Ranch, a nudist resort 20 miles east of Austin in McDade, will host a group skinny dip at 2 p.m. Saturday, July 10.

Last year, 155 people crowded into the resort’s pool, sans clothing, for the event, part of an attempt by the American Association for Nude Recreation to set a new world record for skinny dipping.

The folks out at Star Ranch love this sort of thing. For the last 13 years, they’ve hosted a Bare Buns Fun Run, encouraging people to sprint across the grounds wearing nary a shred of clothing.

When they are not running around or hopping into pools in the buff, the residents are dining at their own Nekkid Lunch Cafe, playing darts, tennis, sand volleyball, shuffleboard or horse shoes, cooking in the community kitchen or hiking the 112-acre property’s wooded trails. The resort also hosts holiday potlucks, costume parties, chili cookoffs and bakeoffs.

Star Ranch was founded in 1958 as “The Sahnoans at Tara Park” nudist camp. The club incorporated in 1972 and adopted the name “The Sahnoans at Star Ranch.” Sahnoan is a Native American word meaning “healthy one.”

Today it has RV and motor home sites, rental cabins and plenty of space to pitch a tent.

The gate fee will be reduced from the usual $25 to just $5 per person for the July 10 skinny dip. Background checks will be done on everyone who enters the property. Anyone who wants to be in the pool for a group photo will have to sign a release.

“Security will be tight,” says Star Ranch representative David Phillips. “If someone gets up to the pool or is seen around the grounds looking like a Hippie Hollow ogler, he’ll be shown the gate.”

For more information on Star Ranch, go to http://www.starranch.net/index.htm.

The photo above by the Associated Press shows skinny dippers at the Whispering Pines Nudist Resort and Campground in Ocean Isle Beach, N.C., taking part in the American Association for Nude Recreation World Record Skinny Dip.