Sea Swimming Blog #78

Day 481 Sea Swimming.

#79 of the blog.

Boulay Bay - Air Temp 6 degrees - Wind N Force 6 - Sea Temp 9.9

This blog post is a day late and almost wasn’t written.

The ritual of daily dipping can often feel like enough of a ‘burden’ (even though it’s always a blessing once done) that taking photos of the same spot then trying to think of something interesting to write about it doesn’t always come easily.

But then I guess it’s not that often that I swim whilst it’s snowing so if I can’t write about this then what can I write about?

After last weeks beautiful weather - with temperatures rising to nearly 20 degrees - it was a shock to the system when it dropped to well below 10 degrees (accompanied by a bitter wind).

I normally don’t look too far ahead when it comes to my swims/dips but my ears did prick up when I heard that we might be due some snow on Thursday so I had been checking the forecast on a daily basis for the few days proceeding it.

For most of the day it was a bit cold but fairly sunny and I thought that the forecasters had been a bit keen with their predictions.

After an early afternoon of photography teaching I headed to Boulay Bay where I normally have a Thursday swim with my mum.

Unfortunately she had a bit of a cold so I started my solitary decent, driving down the hill…

Which is when the first snow flurry came… “excellent timing”(!)

Even prior to today, I’d struggled a bit with the pre-swim mentality since having a couple of weeks off… despite the warmer, sunnier weather we’d been having it seemed that getting into a sub 10 degree sea was becoming a little bit less of an inviting prospect than it was a few weeks earlier.

Today would be a test… no doubt about it.

As I drove down the hill I saw a Ukrainian flag blowing furiously in the wind (“mmmm great… a strong Northerly wind”)… then looked out to sea and saw a stampede of white horses smashing their way down into the dark grey (uninviting) water (“mmmm great… rough as fcuk”).

But all things considered, it could be worse.

I parked up, got changed and had a little laugh to myself as I began the journey down to the waters edge… just as the flurry came to a halt.

Maybe I’ve missed it?

I walked out into the water and felt an almost instantly numbing effect on the toes before battling out to chest height with waves crashing around me (all the time trying to keep my arm - which I’ve recently had a bit of ink added to - out of the water).

I dunked my now totally shaven head underneath the waves - “wow, fresh!” - then spotted the white flakes start spewing from the dark clouds above… much heavier than before.

I stayed in for about 5 minutes - now with both arms out like some kind of human sacrifice to the elements - taking in both how special and sadistic the moment was…

The Snow.

The Sea.

And Me.

… no blog for today… I went swimming at St Brelade’s Bay and didn’t bring my camera… but if I had the main image from the dip would have been looking back from the sea to the beach and seeing a dog pi$$ing on my bag and clothes… April fool on me!

“Nothing burns like the cold”

- George R.R. Martin