Monday 24 November 2014

The swim

The idea for this challenge came from my friend Michelle... to swim the length of Coogee or Bronte.  For some reason I chose Bondi (I think mainly because my friends Fran and Karen live in Bondi and I thought it would be a good way to see them too!), not realising that of course it is a significantly longer beach!

So before work today Michelle, Kath and I decided to swim the length of Bondi - within a week where there have been 2 great whites over 2 metres long found in the nets at the beach (albeit 500metres from shore which was nowhere near as far out as we were going to go!) and a weekend of Northerly winds which bring blue bottle jellyfish to Sydney, we decided to still give it a go!  

Fran came and met us down at North Bondi before heading off to work and with a few words of advice we were on our way.  We didn't end up taking the Bondi Escalator (the rip at North Bondi that takes you out to the best spot to swim from), we went through the yellow and red swimming flags instead and plunged into the surf, picked our line and started swimming.  

Well... after less than 2 minutes I was exhausted!  Much like my first ride back on the bike, swimming in the open water is quite confronting and tiring. Waves coming from one side, goggles that don't work, seaweed disguised as who knows what, water up my nose, water being inhaled... wow!  I must say, freestyle makes a massive difference swimming in the waves, breaststroke gets you hardly anywhere.  But through all that it was actually fun!

After about 20 minutes, (unfortunately/fortunately??) Michelle got stung by a blue bottle so we (I) decided we should go in!  Shell would have kept going if I had wanted to but safety first... right Cath?!  We had actually swum about 3/4 of the way and I was happy with how far we had come.  Swimming back in to shore and catching the waves was also fun and a challenge, I know the theory but putting it into practice when I am out of practice was interesting - caught a really good last one into the beach to top off the experience nicely and then a good stroll, people watch and gossip back to the car along the beach. 

I headed over to Karen's place for a lovely cuppa tea, shower and breakky.  It was great hanging out with Karen and her beautiful girl Skye before going to work.

What a great way to start the day! 


7 comments:

  1. Wow Aunty Nic, you're awesome! And I can't quite work out how you managed to do all that, including breaky & shower at Karen's all before work??

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  2. Just realised this is the same Michelle who rode to work with you - she is either an awesome friend or completely mad?!

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  3. Michelle is all of the above and also super fit :)
    We started at around 6:30 and I got to Karen's just after 7 so it was an earlyish morning!

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  4. Great to see you Nic! Let's see, a swim, a ride...if you have a run planned we could add a triathlon to the list :)

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  5. Well actually Frannie, I am doing the Mothers Day run next year..... :)

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  6. I only just read this...good safety reference :)

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