Sea Swimming Blog #67

Day 106 Sea Swimming.

#67 of the blog.

It was my birthday today so I met up with the Bathing Beau and Bluebelles secretly hoping they’d provide a bounty of cake for all who joined us but even with these somewhat lofty expectations they yet again outdid themselves and went above and beyond.

First thing I noticed was Leila dressed up, wearing a cardboard cut out of a camera around her neck along with a funky camera hat… then Jenny with 3 cameras whilst Julia even had an underwater housing for hers!

My wife and I had cycled down in the stunning sun, and before she knew it Jenny had her put to work, sorting out bunting… but thankfully for her, she was well away from the sea (long term project I think).

Another one of those who joined us for a dip was Phil from the Swim Smart Channel relay team… and it was also his birthday too… funny coincidence… and so there we were in the water, 2 Pisces in a Pod celebrating with a birthday swim.

Simon from the relay team also joined us and the three of us set out in what were pretty much perfect conditions (albeit on a large Spring tide) towards the regular buoy markers - Wilson then onto Gracie - I stopped for a moment then noticed Phil carrying on beyond to the other buoys a little further away so continued before pausing again and noting he was now heading to the black and yellow pole that juts out of the water on a high tide.

We all made it this far before the voice of reason (Simon) said that we’d better be careful as the Spring tide can bring a strong current with it and that we should head back… you could definitely sense it was a bit of a challenge getting back in with a cross current pulling us left towards Belcroute but we picked a diagonal line and after only 10 minutes from when we had entered the water, we were back in near the St Aubin slipway.

I popped out and grabbed the camera for a couple of shots in the water - sucking up another 5 minutes to take us to 15 before we got out, got dressed, opened some lovely cards (including a turtle one made from sea glass!) and got stuck into the amazing cake that had be very kindly prepared, serenaded with a ‘Happy Birthday’ sing-song whilst we shivered our way back to normal body temperature.

“A birthday is just the first day of another

365-day journey around the sun.

Enjoy the trip.”