First Sea Swim of the Season

 

First Sea Swim of the Season

I knew that Steve had been keeping an eye on the tide time tables after I had mentioned that even though the Littlehampton Wave Swimming Centre was still as closed as closed be; that it would soon be warm enough to swim in the sea. Steve is always concerned about me and had insisted that the water temperature was still too cold for me. He made and extra point of saying that he did not want me to get cold just for the hell of it and that we would wait a while.

I have lived by the seaside almost all my life, apart from the war years and as a new born babe my mum took me and my brother to Yorkshire to live with my dad’s family while he was away in the army.

As child my cousin and I played on the beach all summer long through school holidays while my parents were at work all day. We were unsupervised and nobody seemed to be that bothered about it in those days. Any sunny day and we would walk to the beach and play there all day long. At low tide, on the sand and the little rock pools and at high tide we were in the water. My cousin John could swim properly long before m, but I still went out in the deep water with him, kicking my legs and paddling my arms encircled by an old truck inner tube. On those nice days my mum, would walk home along the seafront when she finished work as a chamber maid at one of the hotels and find us where she knew we liked to base ourselves, and we would walk home together, it just a ten minute walk.

Back to the plot here, I had given up asking when we were going for a sea swim since Steve is a control freak and likes to arrange everything for us both, so unless I stick my oar in and object, which does not happen that often, he makes the plans. You see, having been left to look after myself whilst still a junior school child, I find it quite charming and amusing that Steve likes to look after me. So I go along with having a manager/husband/coach/chef.

This morning the alarm went off at stupid o’clock as per freaking’ usual. We were going to get our first sea swim in, having prepared all our kit last night. We put our wetsuits on at home and drove to the beach and back, its only five minutes away. It was a most perfect morning, almost still and the big ball of fire was just up in the sky, flashing down on the beach. It was a very low high tide, I couldn’t believe that it was in fact as high as it was going get, but we were bang on high tide time.

I was expecting it to be cold but apart from the moment when that first trickle of water squeezed in the neck of my wet suit. It was not cold at all; in fact I thought it was quite warm.

We only had a short swim, about half of the distance we would normally be doing at this time of year. But Steve pointed out the obvious; we had not been swimming at all since the beginning of March when the rot set in at the time when the first person in the UK died of this deadly virus on March 5^th I believe; that’s what it says in my diary anyway. 

This is Steve with Maarten van der Weijden of the NL. Taken at a Human Race open water swim at Dorney lake where this incredibly tall swimmer won the 10km event he must be 6'9 or 6'10".

We swam together as we normally would, swimming eastwards against our wicked current parallel to the shore, beyond the ends of the spiteful barnacle covered breakwaters. Then when we reached whatever point is on the days plan, we would turn and swim back current assisted, getting back in half the time. It was glorious, absolutely heavenly.

We were not alone on that stretch on water either, because further out in the sea, there were a handful of paddle boarders taking advantage of the fairly flat water. There were even a couple of people already sitting on the beach a couple of breakwaters away and on the promenade the early runners and dog walkers. All at 5.10 a.m.

What joy to get away from the TV reports of the Cummings and Goings saga that has so annoyed us all and set the cat among the pigeons. People have got seriously confused, with no idea what that can or should not be doing. There was a full scale pool party at the house just over the road yesterday, where there was no social distancing whatsoever. A group of young girls all in party attire arrived arms all round each other and then needing some support on the way out later. It is impossible for us not to see, since our home stands up on a bank overlooking that garden as we ate our meal. I despair.

Let’s not even get into the horrible cause of the riots in the USA that all seems to have set them back into the dark ages for a while. Dreadful state of affairs with the fires and looting when all sense of right is lost.