After three hours sleep a hangover and eight hours at work my enthusiasm for a moonlit night swim has significantly wained. Yes I know the huge super moon was actually Saturday night but I thought it would still be pretty spectacular one day later. Cycling to work at dawn on Sunday morning the sky was streaked blood red and I should have remembered the old saying but surely the warning only applied to shepherds not swimmers? I've spent at least the last week telling everyone I know that I want to do this so when it gets to the point and I want to just go and hide under the duvet SHAME will stop me. This is very good tactic for most things in life. By the time the minute hand hits a quarter past six in the evening however I want to to cry, consider txting M.G. but know she will just repeat our mantra "it's always worth it" or tell me this whole thing is supposed to be enjoyable not torture and I don't have to do it.I know that it's pretty early in the evening but doubt that my willpower will last until later.
The lone lifeguard is being so very supportive instead of offering up the usual dire warnings of impending death or ways I could potentially injure myself that I begin to think the huge moon has affected his mind. I'm unsure of the Night swim etiquette and it only occurs to me after a huge Indian meal that eating masses before swimming is possibly a bad idea. Clearly I'm just going to sink to the bottom of The Wash like a curry flavoured stone. As we drive to the coast the sky is looking suspiciously cloudy, I start to think that maybe I should have actually looked up what time the moon rises...
The Car park at Snettisham is mercifully empty which improves my mood no end until I walk over the sea wall and see a line of guys fishing off the high tide. Honestly is there never any time when the beach is empty?
I entrust the lone lifeguard with camera duties who unlike me is not completely incompetent and has remembered a torch so is really more of a walking lighthouse. Stripping off I can't say it's any colder than usual actually it's quite a balmy night probably because of all the CLOUD. Despite the lack of moon it is still very beautiful I can see flickering lights of boats out to sea, the rather brighter lights of Sunny Hunny further up the coast and even a faint glow from across the other side of the Wash. The sea is calm but black and the Stone age part of my brain puts up a brief protest against entering dark murky waters underneath which anything could lurk. Thankfully though any sea beasties will be hauled in by the battery of fishermen 20ft away.
The tide is so high my feet are still on the shingle when it becomes deep enough to swim. I push out and look back to shore gradually all the light is fading fast and the dark figures become dark shadows on the shore. Weirdly although I'm about as much in the open as anyone can be I feel strangely enclosed. In the day the sea stretches to the horizon and I feel like just a little part in this vast expanse, but with less light you swim along in a patch of water that just stretches a few meters around you. I don't think you would have this sensation on a moonlit night although I can see that would be amazing in a completely different way. As I get out I realise the lifeguard's torch has stopped working the lifeguard also isn't sure whether the camera is on the right setting and potentially we have no pictures. I am on such a high however that even this blogging failure can't bring me down. The lifeguard goes off to apologise to the fishermen for me scaring the fish away while I struggle into my many layers. This is another tick in the plus column for night swimming as false modesty can go out the window as you don't have to worry about flashing delicate minded beach walkers. I am so pleased I did this and think that Night swimming is definitely something I am going to do more of from now on.
Once home I discover at least one picture thankfully in which I am sort for visible although M.G. has already suggested that I'm masquerading as the loch ness monster.
J.J.
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