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The Outdoor Swimmer
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There are also 2 other blogs I have run in between:
Open Sky Swimming
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Tri2019 A Triathlon Novice Blog
Wetsuits and Triathlons
Even with the wetsuit I think this was the coldest swim since last November. The cold just got into me from the moment I stood barefoot on the concrete to get changed to swim, hands too cold to get the goggles on properly or so it seemed. I went in at Sharrah Pool in the snow in just swimwear in February and it wasn’t like this. And this morning was not the hardest frost there has been on the windscreen. Some mornings it is just this way.
Some people say you never regret a swim, well sat on the slipway 3/4 mile later with the wetsuit knotted firmly around one ankle neither going up nor off and hands that refused to get a grip I would have argued that point if only my teeth would have stopped chattering.
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Coffee, more coffee here please
Early Spring
It was chill again first thing and during the morning a breeze has sprung up scything across the cropped grass on the hilltop. However, turning amongst the trees the footpath curls around the slope of the hillside out of the breeze to where sunshine floods down through the green dappled branches.
Devon violets, the darkest nightshade purple, have lifted their flowers through the fallen leaves and twisted strings of ivy. There are bunches of bluebells tucked beneath the drifts of snowy white blackthorn flowers along the route I could almost run with my eyes closed, but then I would miss out on all of this sensory overload.
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The beach, once I have scrambled down the slope, smells of baked sand with a piquant hint of burnt driftwood. I don’t have time to swim far out, or the desire in this choppy sea, just far enough to see around the wave lashed headland to Dartmouth Castle. Then it is time to retrace my route only now weighed down with a bag of beach cleaned rubbish and a length of driftwood. And tomorrow it rains.
So, this is a wetsuit.
The sea was as smooth as if it was freshly ironed first thing this morning stretching to a horizon blanketed in mist. The mist has gone and beneath a clear blue sky in full sunshine I am burning up inside my wetsuit as I tuck tangled hair into swimhat and fumble in ear plugs and add goggles. I am not cut out for all this faff!
The water is clear beneath my feet as I wade in where pebbles shimmer amongst the glittering sand. 10 strokes though and the kelp coated rocks are little more than faint shadows and then they are gone into aquamarine depths.
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I circle East Shag Rock, the shark fin profile cutting through the slight swell and swallowing the beachfront café and blue doored huts. For a moment civilization is obscured but then all too soon it pans back into view. .
I cannot see my next marker, a rock standing only a few feet proud of the water on this tide and 500m over there somewhere. If I head for the splotch of colour that is the beach shelter I won’t go far wrong. .
A lone gull perches on the rock and eyes me with that malicious expression they all have. As I circle the rock the gull hops across it in counterpoint to my route. It takes to the wing, circles me once as I swim away and glancing over my shoulder I see it backwatering the air with its wings before settling back onto it’s vantage point.
1200m done and back at the slipway and I’m fresh as a daisy, but I’m not going any further today.
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Far From the Madding Crowd
Even though this is only separated from the main seafront road through town by a low wall with the sea a dead calm and the horizon in each direction fading into grey mist there is a tranquil air about the place.
The usual sounds of the day: the barking of a distant dog, the churl of gulls or the throb of traffic do not register, filtered out in an attempt to make sense of the soundless sea.
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I kick a foot in the clear water reassured by the splash and chatter of the water, but stepping back and the world becomes a giant anechoic void once more.
Spring Equinox
With the equinox comes the first day of spring and there’s surely no better place to be than on the divide between the land and the sea at the turn of the tide. Light and dark, land and sea, balanced for a fleeting moment. And in that fleeting moment, for 30 minutes, and for the only 30 minutes today, the sun shone down and filled this corner sheltered from the breeze with light and warmth. Meanwhile far out towards the horizon a 2 masted yacht was being driven before the wind like a chariot racing amidst a sea of galloping white horses
Swimming in and out of the inlets, between and around sunken rocks, the waves rising and falling but already changing intensity signalling the tide is rising, drowning the tide line of kelp fronds, drawing them down waving beneath the water like the clutching hands of drowning souls who will have to wait in limbo until Persephone returns in autumn to guide them across the River Styx into Hades.
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Click for full size
Morning Blues
Low tide and the sand reaches, golden, to a calm blue sea that rises up through the horizon of cotton wool clouds to greet the azure blue sky. Yesterday’s storm retains however a sting in its tail and the breeze that tugs and flicks my hair is a wickedly chill 4°C and draws all the warmth from me and none from the sunshine.
A few souls wrapped tight in winter coats are frozen in still reverie, without purpose, as their dogs chase in playful circles.
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The water is a warm alternative to the beach and I breaststroke keenly for the horizon as the onlookers on the cafe terrace watch and cup their hands for the warmth around lattes and cappuccinos. Am I making you feel cold?
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100m off the beach gives me a clear view up and down the coast and I catch the comet white flash of a gannet before it sends up a flume of spray as it crashes into the sea. Kicking about and filling the sky with glittering water drops I zig-zag my way through the boredom and pain, occasionally glancing up through the rain, wondering which of the buggers to blame, and watching for pigs on the wing. Where did Pink Floyd come from? I reconnect abruptly with reality as sand crunches under me and I run aground on the beach.
Gimme Shelter
No-one gets to have a say about the cards that are dealt into their hands at the moment of their birth though often some of the cards were dealt off the bottom of the deck long before that.
Sometimes we can discard and pick up and some people get lucky or are just smart, but I guess most of us have to make the best of what we were given.
My hand has so far been pretty good though I do have a knack of discarding exactly what someone else needs to make a full house and sometimes I am convinced the deck is marked and that there should not be this many jokers in play.
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Click for full size
Nevertheless with my cards I have somehow wound up here. It’s a little after 8am and I have done a run along the seafront and back through deserted, tree sheltered roads, finished off with a quick dip in a still, sun warmed corner as Storm Gareth raises the sea beyond the point into racing white horses with manes of spray thrown high against the blue sky. That being the case I will try to ride out the rest and not take any of it too personally.
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All the pieces in all the right places!
There are times when all the pieces that have been thrown into the air fall precisely into place. Or they appear to when viewed from a certain perspective.
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This is today’s perspective.
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The sky is the bluest blue from left to right and front to back. The breeze that at first seemed a little sharp turns out to have a refreshing Goldilocks quality as I run along the seafront, just the right degree of chill that I am neither too hot nor too cold. The sea is playfully ruffled but I can clearly see the bottom step of the 11 that lead into the pale green depths. And whereas I have been trying repeatedly in recent weeks to get a diving action photo this morning I was 3 for 3.
All the pieces in all the right places!
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Like lemmings to a cliff
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The beach huts have begun their seasonal migration to the seafront. That may turn out to be a bold move in the face of the weather forecast for the week to come. It will not however, if it turns out that way, be the first time I have swum amongst the flotsam of summer dreams that have been crushed and scattered. In the meantime rumour of storms and snow seems overly pessimistic. The high tide sea has rather the appearance of having been ironed to glassy stillness.
“There and no further!” The spectre of Canute sits upon the top step, toes poised above the supplicant pre-day grey-green sea which trails a dark tide line along the wall. In defiance a rill of water snakes over the dry step and the spectre fades into the glare of the cloud hazed sun.
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To the beach front and back. But in no more than 15 minutes the sea has taken half a step back and the forerunners of the storm in waiting are scritching up the sea. There may yet be trouble ahead.
Swimming Wild Outdoors 