Known online as Undiin, the 45‑year‑old documents her swims on social media, aiming to set a record and inspire others, while balancing the risks of revealing secluded spots, "Pealtnägija" reported.

Kender said her relationship with lakes began in childhood in southern Estonia. "My country home is in Põlva County near Kanepi, and perhaps those lakes were the places we always looked forward to going to after making hay or weeding," she recalled. "As a reward, we would always be taken to a lake, and later, as a teenager, there were often village parties by lakes."

Two summers ago, she announced on social media that she intended to swim in 101 lakes over the summer. "I work as a lecturer and have a long holiday. Somehow I came up with the idea of setting myself a nice SMART goal, a measurable goal," she reasoned. "The rationale for making it public was that it is incredibly easy to give up on a goal."

She adopted the artist name Undiin, which is a water nymph or lake spirit she first heard about at 16. While she picked around 400 followers in her first year, that number increased tenfold this summer. Her toughest audience is at home: Her teenage children, who still find it "cringe," she added.

After completing 101 lakes in her first summer, she decided to swim in every lake in Estonia — but answering how many that is proves difficult.

"That is a very difficult question. If we look at the national register, there are a couple of thousand bodies of water in it. Many of them do not actually have names: Bog pools, and of course artificial bodies of water have also made their way into the register," said lake researcher Roland Laarmaa.

Scientists work with a figure of a couple of thousand lakes, but a decade ago, a researcher counted every body of water on aerial maps and arrived at 90,000 ponds, lakes, bog pools and other bodies of standing water. Undiin does not plan to swim in all of them, as many are on private land or difficult to access.

She has faced criticism online for revealing secluded swimming spots. Scientists also stress that to protect fragile ecosystems, people should primarily swim at designated bathing sites.

"The most sensitive are soft-water bodies, which are actually places people really enjoy swimming in. Lake Viitna Pikkjärv, for example, is a soft-water lake and therefore a very sensitive ecosystem," Laarmaa explained, talking about a small lake in Lääne-Viru County.

Kender has set her next milestone: to swim at all 500 lake bathing sites as listed on the environmental portal, and review them as a lake connoisseur. She has also noticed spots of humor in the names earlier generations gave them.

She chose Lake Purgatsi, near Aegviidu, for her meeting with Pealtnägija — as it is a lake with personal significance. "I got divorced five years ago. This was the lake where my then-husband and I told our children about that difficult decision," she said.

Swimming in lakes is a form of therapy for Kender, one she hopes will inspire others. "I could perhaps reach 500 by the time I'm 55. As long as I'm healthy, I might as well keep swimming," she noted.

The original "Pealtnägija" report is here.

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