It seems like ages since I swam in open water, though I get the same sense of timescale every year when the open water swimming season starts. It’s May, and on Tuesday I had my first open water swim of the year in an unfamiliar location, with unfamiliar people. Let me explain… I have recently moved house to live by the sea. Moving over two hours drive away from my previous location means I’ve had to find everything from scratch, doctors, dentist, shops, bank, post office, etc, etc. This includes places to swim. Thankfully there is a pool at the local leisure centre just up the road from me, for my daily lunchtime swims, but I’ve been having trouble finding a place to swim outdoors. Yes, I now live 5 mins from the beach, but I don’t like to swim on my own in a new location. It’s simply not sensible, from a safety point of view, particularly as when I swim, I like to do a few kilometres and not just a two minute dip by the waters edge, so I t’s good to swim with someone who has local knowledge of any potential hazards. Unfortunately the day after I move house, the local lake where I had planned to swim each week, closed for good, to the shock and anger of the local swimming community, and this meant finding somewhere else.
Thankfully my wife (who’s a runner) joined the local running club and through them she heard of some of the members trying to organise a swim training evening (for triathletes) on Oulton Broad and mentioned it to me. So, three weeks later I found myself searching through moving boxes in my garage, looking for my wetsuit, swim, hat and tow float. I never wear a wetsuit when I swim, (too restrictive and I overheat) but the instruction from the organiser was to wear one, so in the end I settled on a sleevless wetsuit that I had only worn maybe twice before, in the hope it would prevent me from overheating. The water was apparently 13-14 degrees, so a wetsuit might be prudent for the first swi of the year anyway.
Arriving at the Oulton Broad water Sports Centre I was pleased to see several people in various stages of squeezing themselves into wetsuits and donning swimming hats. I had no idea how many people were going to be there, whether there was a place to get changed, where we were swimming, etc, etc but it all turned out great.
The sun was shining, with next to no wind, as Mark (the organiser) told us the planned swimming route out across the front of the marina towards the bank full of bullrushes. Then follow along the edge of the Broad and around the bouy by the house boat, before heading back towards the start. Add into the mix a handful of anchored boats to avoid along the way, it made a nice 500 metre course. The only major issue being that on the way out we were swimming directly into the sun and could not see a thing.(need some polarised swimming goggles for next time). Being 18:30 the sun was very low in the sky and reflecting off the surface of the water blinding us as we swam across the Broad. Thankfully we had a handful of kayakers and paddle boarders along with us for safety and the silhouette of the paddle boarder on her board was the only thing I could see looking into the sun. I just kept aiming for that shape on the horizon.
The downward leg back toward the start was wonderful and I stopped at several points to just float and look around at the beautiful scenery and revel in the feeling and sensation of being back in the water after what seemed like such a long winter. I had such a smile on my face as I arrived back at the start. My only issue was that firstly I was too hot in the wetsuit, despite it being a sleeveless one and secondly that precisely because it was sleeveless, my legs were overly buoyant, making it feel like someone was trying to pull me up out of the water by my ankles as I swam along. This resulted in giving me a bit of a back ache by the time I had done another lap of the course, but I was so happy to be back in the water I hardly noticed. Hopefully this will materialise into a weekly swim (fingers crossed). The sensation of piece and tranquility you get when floating in the water and the overwhelming sense of freedom is hard to beat. It’s a perfect way to de-stress. I literally came out of the water with a grin on my face and can’t wait to get back in next week.