Sea Swimming Blog #27

Day 66 Sea Swimming.

#27 of the blog.

Not strictly swimming in the rain… more like getting smashed around by the waves in the rain.

I wanted to go to a different location today rather than St Aubin and had thought I was meeting someone in town at 10am for a meeting, photoshoot and swim at Havre des Pas afterwards.

Only problem was I was 2 hours out with my times so arrived early, realised the error of my ways, saw that Havre des Pas looked pretty mad at that time so decided I’d go a bit later on.

By the time I was ready, it was about 3:45pm and with about an hour left of ‘sunlight’ (I’ll use the term loosely as there was no sign of the big yellow thing today) I thought I’d check out La Braye - anticipating big waves and rough seas.

And that’s exactly what I got.

With the tide heading out, I had to take all my gear quite a way down onto the beach to get changed - in the rain.

By this time it was too late to change my plan so I put my dry robe waterproof side down on the soggy sand and put all my gear inside it before wrapping it up to try and shelter my clothes and camera bag as best I could.

With the rain coming down pretty heavily it appeared almost misty (a bit like a whiteout in the mountains) and when the lonesome figure of a surfer in a black wetsuit caught my eye I quickly grabbed my camera and took a shot of him as he gazed into the frantic, messy sea - there was a few decent waves but it certainly wasn’t the cleanest I’ve ever seen it down there and I wondered what was going through his mind as he was about to get in.

I took a couple more shots with the DSLR then packed it away, grabbed the waterproof camera and decided to basically just have a bit of fun… there’d be no proper swim today.

I got smashed around by a few big waves (whilst wearing my yellow inflatable and at pretty much at waist/chest height in the water… safety first and all that) and it was 99% good laugh as I tried to wipe the lens clean before the next set came in and battered me and 1% a little frustration as the camera refused to focus through the water droplets… though I do kind of like a couple of the blurred images I’ve chosen as they convey a sense of the seas wildness, power and motion.

Not quite what I’d had in mind when I woke up but I left the beach with a smile on my face nonetheless.

“I prefer the person who comes out of the sea

more than the one that goes in”