Thursday 3rd February 2011, 12 noon, West Bay

Does this count??

A glorious day, still and sunny in the garden. A definite swimming day. MG and I arrange to meet at west bay for our first February dip and for me my first full year swim (having started in March 2010, my only – rather lax - rules being a minimum of one unheated outdoor swim per month).

We meet in the car park and are immediately concerned by the strong winds coming off the beach. I have just moved house and the new place is sheltered from the south westerlies giving me a false idea of calm from home.

Reaching the beach and seeing the 4-5 ft waves breaking at low tide, just on a steeply shelving slope did not help. We get extra cautious when the sea temp is low and 5.2 deg c is low enough without having to worry about being stuck in the water waiting for a calm patch before being able to swim in again. Stuck for 5 minutes in normal temps is fine but common sense prevails in the cold and we decide its just too rough for a full swim… (it was rougher than it looks below!)

… however, we are all psyched up and desperate for some cold water and so get changed anyway and play in the surf, lie down in the waves (avoiding being sucked out to sea with the backwash) and I even manage a few feet of breast stroke in the moments of still and shallow water left by a large wave before its retreat.

Oddly it was even more difficult to lie down in shallow water and let the cold waves wash over us than normal swimming. I think we rely on getting out of our depth and having no choice but to swim. Sitting in freezing water just seems a bit odd!

We decide it just about counts as a swim as we did both go fully under a number of times and manage a few moments with feet off the ground and if nothing else it will keep our cold water acclimatization going.

Leaving the beach after 5 minutes basking in the warm sun we had two aerial treats. Firstly a small group of ravens hovered about 4 feet above our heads on the thermals from the cliffs, allowing us a rare and fortunate close up encounter and then the same birds joined with the falmers, crows, jackdaws, sea gulls and pigeons in a massed attack on a man-made interloper who was invading their territory – a motorized paraglider. It was amazing to see the paraglider swoop over the beach and amazing to see him being mobbed by a huge assortment of birds.

SW