Sea Swimming Blog #49

Day 88 Sea Swimming.

#49 of the blog.

I woke up this morning to a message from Jason who asked if I fancied a swim at Havre des Pas around 4pm… it sounded like a plan so I considered sacking off St Aubin… then remembered more doughnuts were on offer (as a rollover from yesterday’s Fat Thursday) so packed my camera gear (but not my swim gear) and headed down.

It was just Lynda and Julia braving the elements today and once again the wind was fairly brutal which added to the fear factor but they got themselves ready and headed in to a 7.5 degree sea, managing to stay in for a good little stint whilst I took some photos of them in what were fairly choppy waters… their faces and smiles tell the story much better than my words ever could!

Later on in the afternoon I headed to HDP to meet up with Jason.

Last time I was there I’d tried to capture one of myself doing butterfly but hadn’t quite got the shot I was after due to the timing (a photo every second needing to tie in with the breathing of my butterfly stroke) so that was the plan this time around.

I arrived a little earlier than Jason so had time to roughly set up a shot in which I wanted the central diving station and Le Marais flats in the background (you might think that the view out to sea might look ‘prettier’ but I associate these elements in the skyline with HDP so that’s what I went for).

Jason arrived, we got changed and made our way down to the water…

Apparently the combination of the outside air temperature and the wind made today ‘feel like -5 degrees’ whilst the sea temperature as mentioned earlier was down to 7.5 degrees.

We’ve no way of knowing as we didn’t have a thermometer but the water in HDP felt like the coldest both myself and Jason have been in so far… even with my neoprene hat on, today was the first time I've noticed water collect inside and give me the kind of brain freeze you get after smashing a few Mr Whippy’s one after the other!

Now, I know it’s fashionable for everyone to be a scientist these days(!) but, cast your mind back to chemistry experiments and the time (and heat) of reactions always seemed to increase with a good stir… with no movement in HDP pool this seems to me to be a reasonable explanation as to why it’s so ****’ing cold!!!

Brutally beautiful, but with a sting in the tail!

“Float like a butterfly

Sting like a bee”

- Muhammed Ali