Swimming over the holidays

 Hi there

The first part of the public summer holidays was great.  Lovely swimming, beautiful weather, really hot (for Wellington).  But the second part went down a rating level or two.

The weather was dull.  And wet.  And on one day, cold (I knew the cold weather was coming because I got rheumatism in my knee).  The worst thing was probably that the sea was inundated with those little bitty rice-like thingees, of which the official name seems to have permanently disappeared from my senior mind.  I think they're some type of seaweed.  

As I'm swimming, I'm surrounded by these tiny clear jelly-like things.  I accidentally catch them in my hands.  They bang into me.  I hate the feel of them.  They're completely harmless.  Sometimes, they grow bigger than the size of a rice grain, and  sometimes with squishy little 'tails'.

 Often I do a little swim in a circle and hastily exit the water.  One of my friends at Hataitai Beach was peeling off her bathing suit in the changing shed and lots of these little things dropped out of her top.

In my quest for a clear swim, I went to Worser Bay.  Oh dear, the 'things' were there as well.  In abundence.

Earlier, over the holidays, I walked to Scorching Bay.  I didnt walk there via the sea-front, but instead up and across the hill that leads me down the zig-zag track that finishes up at the side of the cafe at Scorching Bay -

above:  Scorching Bay from zig zag path.  All photos taken in the past, a day after a ferocious storm at sea which left Scorching Bay beach cluttered with sea gravel.