Swim groups, seaweed and wharf jumping

Every week brings new swimming experiences.

It’s been a while since I wrote a post. I’ve been too busy swimming and writing about the sea for various Masters projects (as well as raising my children and other joys/commitments), but most of my assignments are done now – phew!

Now that I have a bit more breathing room, I’m also reflecting on the fact that it has been almost two years since I started swimming in the sea regularly. What began as a few nervous solo dips during a difficult time has become this wonderful journey of connections and growth for me. Connecting with the water, marine life and other people, starting my Masters degree (almost halfway!), attending events, and expanding my comfort zone to swim in new places, swim further, and in different conditions. Every day I am so grateful to live in this beautiful coastal city and particularly on a peninsula with so many lovely little beaches and bays!

The weather has turned towards summer and now the days are longer, brighter, warmer, and the sea temperature is slowly rising. It was 14 degrees in the sea the other day. Balmy!

I am now part of three swim groups, which may seem a little excessive but they are all different, with great people, and I enjoy the company and routines.

1. Better Beach Babes, morning weekday dippers. I usually go along every couple of weeks to catch up with people and bob around in the early morning sun (or pink sky if it’s winter).

2. Wāhine Wai (‘Women of the Water’), weekends and ad-hoc. I love how we can just post in our WhatsApp group and there will always be willing participants for all sorts of different swims!

3. Barb’s Swim and Tri-Fit. Wednesday evening pool session and Sunday morning harbour swims. I feel this has really taken me to a new level of fitness and confidence. I’d always thought harbour swims were out of my league, but it is for all levels and you can choose how far you go. Some mornings are challenging in choppy seas but I always feel great afterwards and enjoy a beachside coffee with the group. (Even with choppy swims I try to ‘feel the rhythm’ and think about it differently, but I stick closer to shore!) Last Sunday the sea was calm and glossy and I had a great swim out to the first buoy and over to the fountain before looping back, about a 30-minute swim.
   
   On the Wellington Ocean Swimmers Facebook page there is a Google Earth map showing the distance between all the harbour markers (buoys and Pt Jerningham Lighthouse). The big beach (where you can see the 80m line below) is where I start from. I’d like to get to the second buoy soon, but that feels far enough for me.

   

   

   Starting point for harbour swims. It is not like this every Sunday!

Writing folio

I’ve just handed in 12,000 words of creative nonfiction. The word count wasn’t hard to reach after writing books, but it’s a new genre for me and I had to have a good balance of narrative, science, sensory descriptions, metaphors, etc. It was challenging and will hopefully add more depth/richness to my writing in future. Now I’m hearing my lecturer’s voice in my head: “Can you write this as a scene?” So I will begin adding ‘scenes’ to these posts!

The longer-term plan with the folio is to make it into a series of longform articles, or essays, or eventually a book, or even a thesis – we’ll see. Depends on my feedback and grade! It’s nice to get pieces of writing bound so they feel a little more ‘authentic’, which is what I did with my book manuscripts and with this one too:

Seaweed Swim

In October I organised a seaweed swim for a project at a new ‘seaweed farm’ on the peninsula. Some of the Wāhine Wai swimmers came along and we had a guest speaker, Nicole Williams, who talked to us about seaweed in the harbour, the threats it faces, and the Love Rimurimu restoration project. It felt like a really special morning with Nicole’s talk, the swim, Anne’s sketches, and Sinead’s seaweed muffins. There’s a lot of work involved in planning an event, so I’m glad I kept it small. Now I’m making a multimedia presentation about the swim, so will share that when it’s ready.

Seaweed swimmers. We’re not used to all this neoprene!

Wharf blessing

Seatoun Wharf has just reopened after 15 months (it was closed for an upgrade) and a few weeks ago there was a Māori blessing on Saturday morning at 6am. That time feels slightly less insane now that it’s lighter in the mornings, but it was raining with strong northerlies. A few Wāhine Wai and Better Beach Babes swimmers were there and it was nice to see the two groups coming together.

A photographer from the city council came too, and she took some great pictures of us. However, the photo that was posted on the council’s Facebook page (with 80K followers) was one of me that was taken out of the water and it may sound silly but I feel I am still processing it a bit. The Woman’s Weekly photoshoot a few months ago was also for a big audience, but in that one the lighting was more flattering and we were posed; in this one I’m standing on the beach in profile, looking decidedly mid-40s. I guess ‘natural’ shots are more honest, but I do feel I’m adjusting to my changing body at the moment: I’m fit and healthy but gravity and grey hairs are definitely creeping in. I try to talk to myself about it the way I would talk to a friend – this is a work in progress!

Bobbing around next to the new wharf, just after 6am. Photo: Wellington City Council

Speaking of the new wharf, I jumped off it a couple of days ago. It was a sunny afternoon and my 9-year-old wanted to do it. She’d jumped off the old wharf, but that was almost two years ago because it has been closed. I didn’t jump off the old wharf (hadn’t even occurred to me) so this was a new experience.

I did feel a bit scared, standing on the edge of the wharf and looking down at the sea – it looks quite far down from that perspective! And of course the longer I stood there and thought about it, the scarier it seemed. But the actual jump was fine – I went first, then she followed with my support.

Later, I asked her if she was surprised that I’d finally jumped off the wharf (we’d planned to, but the other adults with us weren’t doing it).

“Yes!” she exclaimed.
”Were you impressed?” I asked proudly.
“Not really, I was just surprised that someone in their 40s would do that,” she replied.

…

Wharf jump day.

Currently reading: A new book called ‘Chill: the cold water swim cure’ by a UK doctor called Mark Harper. It’s really good! Mark was recently interviewed on RNZ by Karyn Hay.