I describe an approach to data assimilation making use of an explicit map that defines a coordinate system on the slow manifold in the semi-geostrophic scaling in Lagrangian coordinates, and apply the approach to a simple toy system that has previously been proposed as a low-dimensional model for the semi-geostrophic scaling. The method can be extended to Lagrangian particle methods such as Hamiltonian particle-mesh and smooth-particle hydrodynamics applied to the rotating shallow-water equations, and many of the properties will remain for more general Eulerian methods. Making use of Hamiltonian normal-form theory, it has previously been shown that, if initial conditions for the system are chosen as image points of the map, then the fast components of the system have exponentially small magnitude for exponentially long times as ε→0, and this property is preserved if one uses a symplectic integrator for the numerical time stepping. The map may then be used to parametrize initial conditions near the slow manifold, allowing data assimilation to be performed without introducing any fast degrees of motion (more generally, the precise amount of fast motion can be selected).