Sea Swimming Blog #58

Day 97 Sea Swimming.

#58 of the blog.

It was another early morning joining Swim Smart English Channel relay team members Nicky, Rhiannon, Emma and Andy - this time down at St Catherines - for a few laps around the buoys in a fresh and fairly feisty sea… it wasn’t crazy but it certainly wasn’t flat either… it was the type of conditions that we are realistically likely to come across when we make our attempt at our crossing.

It was a little grey down there and as it was a bit choppy, I thought I’d leave the camera in the bag and concentrate on what we were there to do (especially as I knew we’d have to be swimming a fair distance and I was due to photograph a group of sea swimmers later on in the day).

We all ended up swimming different distances… I managed 0.63 of a kilometre during the 15 minutes I was in… with the water a pretty chilly temperature of 7.5 degrees Celsius.

Job done, we had a hot drink and a bacon & egg roll then headed home at around 10:30am.

I was due back in the water, this time Bouley Bay, for 3pm.

Georgia had messaged me during the week to ask if I could take some pictures for her boyfriend Harrison’s birthday - with a contribution going to our Just Giving page in order to raise money for the JSPCA I was more than happy to jump back in - although this time I did wear my neoprene booties.

I met up with the SwimSoc group and took a few photos of everyone getting ready before we headed in for a celebrationary swim with the underwater housing in hand… rewind a few seconds, and just as I’d put the camera in it’s housing, I looked up and noticed a masked melee of Harrison look a-likes before me.

I snapped a few shots of the guys and girls then thought it was probably best to capture the true expressions of everyones faces as they braved the cold, so we did away with the masks and headed into the chill for a bit of bobbing around and a good laugh.

It’s not always easy to know what you’re capturing with this new device but I was semi-confident enough that in this clear water we’d be able to get something underwater so Harrison dropped down for a bit of ice cream head whilst I fired away - thankfully getting a few good ones that were most importantly in focus.

Just to be sure I had the birthday shot captured, I asked him to do it again and, thinking that a shot just after he surfaced would be good, I carried on shooting and managed to end up with a wicked shot of him escaping from the depths of the ocean whilst being stuck in the surface tension of the water - another one to add to the ‘favourites’ list!

“Don’t just count your years…

Make your years count”

- George Meredith