Winds at Hataitai Beach

Hi there

Wed morn NZ time

There were ferocious winds yesterday and last night.  So bad that last night two huge shipping containers got blown off the Wellington wharf -

http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/69250704/wild-wellington-wind-cuts-power-to-homes-sends-shipping-containers-swimming

After the gym yesterday, my friend J, and I decided - rather hesitatingly - to go and 'look at the water' prior to maybe swimming.

We stood on the deck at the beach with a gale howling ferociously around us and did decide to swim.  The water was clear and there were no jelly fish.   J's personal paparazzo went to wait for us in the warmth of his car.  On the footpath, people were scooting past snuggled deep into layer upon layer of clothes   There were short glimpses of the water  in its original state - flat-ish - but the wind was so bad it mostly blew the sea every-which-way.

My friend, J, got under the water first and suddenly I got an epiphany.  Swimming in the winter, in the cold, was .... crazy!

"I don't want to do it!  I don't want to do it!"

I did do it.

I giggled and chortled somewhat hysterically all through the swim.  The freezing wind kept whooshing the freezing water up into my mouth and nose, usually in mid-chortle.

Neither of us had arrived in ultra-warm clothes.  I'd rummaged in the boot ('trunk', if you're American) of my car and come up with a heavy jacket and an old cardy.   J managed to come up with five layers of not-so-warm clothes hidden deep down in her chasm of a backpack.

Our hands were so cold and our bodies so wet that we couldn't get fingers to work when rolling down t-shirts, doing up buttons, pulling on socks. 

Polar bears swim in heavy coats.  Wish we could.....