Sunday 26th September 10am
Post-swim yesterday, I spent most of the afternoon being rolled in a picnic blanket and pushed down a hill by my four year old niece, and then the early dawn hours re-reading Swallows and Amazons (my amazing swim with JJ to Wild Cat Island last week still glorious in my mind) so I'm well ready for an early dip. SW had texted last night to say that our special guest, KH, (who is far more than a guest really – a swimmer as brave and fearless as the best of them…us) is keen to swim at 10am. So at 9.40 I'm in the car with the mascot. It's another perfect day and since I'm early I walk the mascot up the cliff where as I stand looking down at the few fishermen, the very few ripples and the even fewer early walkers, the mascot thinks she spots SW and nearly takes a flying leap off the cliff edge. Back in the car park she does spot him and tears into his outstretched arms, nose to whiskery nose. KH appears – it's great to see her as I don't think we've swum together since May – we meet as the cold brings us together, flushing us out of independent burrows. We walk down to the cliff edge where the tide is back to normal, leaving a narrow passage twixt water and cliff, where we settle (mascot well hidden as we don't think she's allowed on this beach till October). The water feels cold to KH – she says it is significantly colder than last week when she was last in. I'm in first, slightly accidentally, as in the murky water you can't help stepping in rather deeper than you expect. I'm up to my waist and a yard behind me KH is only up to her ankles. We all splash out together and just 10 metres or so from the beach the water clears a lot and our toes are visible. It's utter bliss. KH reminds me that it was exactly this weekend, the last weekend in September, that we three had a sensational swim early on a Sunday morning – that swim, like this one, went down in history as pure perfection. KH does mutter something about a "dettol" smell, but SW reassures us it is definitely in the air, not the water, and a little further out it's gone and we've forgotten it. We spread out, only coming together to exchange the occasional remark. SW has his waterproof camera, and is struggling to hold it steady – but the results, as seen here, are sensational. Good work. When I glance back to check on his whereabouts, I see his feet shooting straight up into the air, as he dives down. We do a lot of underwater work – I'm a pearl diver like the Cheltenham and Gloucester ad. SW I suspect is Jacques Mayol in The Big Blue. I glide in from what seems like miles out, hardly able to bear the beginning of the chill in my fingertips. On the cliff top 30 feet above us, a line of walkers in macs, thick socks and boots stand, one of them pointing us out. A glow, not just from the desperate struggle of my heart to keep going (not really, it's only September!) fills me….
SW and KH are already out, though SW passes me as he runs back in, and before I've even picked up my towel, I've turned and dashed back, much to KH's amusement. The water feels so warm compared to the air! But time's up. We gossip as we change, taking turns to warm our hands on the willing mascot, who is resigned to our insanity. KH and SW are swapping recipes – we do a lot of that, swimming and eating seem to be inextricably linked. We quite often discuss what we are going to eat when we get home whilst still in the water. Then KH spots something – not, thank God, an eel or a shark, but a little black and white bird, paddling furiously along parallel to the shore. We all four get up for a closer look. SW thinks it's an little auk – not apparently just a Tolkein villain, but a beautiful and rare bird that visits Portland occasionally.
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