Saturday 9th October, 4.30pm

I am deeply embarrassed to report that the official sea temperature is a near tepid 16 degrees. We were feeling brave and a little smug yesterday and enjoyed admiring some colourful post swim body parts. But 16 degrees, that’s virtually the same as August! No wonder the bar is still closed!

Saturdays are always quite busy here and there were even a few fellow swimmers in or almost in the water – serious ones in wet suits in training for something impressive, a few prancers and a couple of normal swimmers (if there is such a thing).  Given the water temperature I am not surprised there are plenty of swimmers. I think it is just the gray skies and cold winds that put people off, its actually often warmer in the water than out at this time of year.

The Mascot, who is already elderly and a little lame has damaged her foot in a running incident and so has been replaced for one day only by her daughter, the Mascotini. She seems very excited by her time away from the rest of the pack and plays, jumps, barks and goes generally a bit mad. We all walk (or run, jump etc) five minutes to an empty patch of beach, just in time to catch the start and end of the promised Indian summer weekend. After 24 hours of Tupperware skies there were at last a few patches of blue and a weak sun.

We change and then run into the brown calm, swimming out into deeper water. MG recalls a news report of bottle nosed dolphins having been seen locally and we scan the horizon and listen underwater for them. We concede that although it would be amazing to see dolphins here it would also be the end of the blog as we would probably never have anything more exciting to report.  Therefore we were really quite glad that we saw nothing more thrilling than a few stray lumps of seaweed. We discuss ear problems – a swimmers hazard – and admire the patterns that the suddenly developed strong winds are making on the waters surface. Another lovely swim. A touch shorter than yesterday as the Mascotini is getting restless and we were probably in a little too long last time (ref alarming hands). Although the sea had been quite calm, as we were getting out the earlier noted strong winds were causing some very large freak waves to break right at the beach which caused some comedy falling over/being washed away.

I think we must have timed this one just right as we left feeling exercised and refreshed but not chilled and I am pleased to report, with normal coloured hands.


SW