Still swimming

 Hi there

I'm still winter swimming at Hataitai Beach, my 15th winter-swimming year.  

Jay, The Young One, and I swam together for ten years . For a few years after my swimming friends' lives had gone in other directions, I swam in the lonely cold winter sea all by myself.

But then Covid came and the whole country was shut down. No swimming allowed.

Freedom came in the month of March and, suddenly, the beach was crowded.  Under normal circumstances swimmers would all but have given up with the onset of cooler days.

But this time, many never stopped swimming.  It was as if having lost their freedom during a covid summer, they were going to make up for such an outrage by swimming through the winter. 

Today, there are lots of swimmers, all of them bubbling away with the joy of a cold winter sea.  And me?  I'm getting jaded because of ...

being dictated to by the tide times, and the sea and air temps;

the gradual  disappearance of the sun on the deck;

the winter shadows that completely cover the water in the bay;

the aching coldness of the sea;

the absolutely freezing changing sheds where after a swim my fingers are so numb I can't hook up my bra, do up buttons or zips, or pull up sleeves, and all this forces me to  stay longer in the shed, getting colder by the minute;

the bone-chilling cold that is often inside me for a couple of hours post-swim if I don't make it home fast enough for my hot shower, 

and

the fact that I have to give up so much of my ordinary life because I'm ruled by my swims...

Hey ... Do you think I will be swimming next winter?

sorry for moaning...