well, three birthdays to note, Hildi last week, ollie this week and Pete on Saturday. We all congratulated each other and missed sara who normally provides limericical (new word?) flavour. What can I say, the sea was rough. The winds and the rain the night before was the writing on the wall. I dashed down there in the dium light to find pete in the carpark also. We marched to the beach with the fish bucket in tow - ring ring!. The sea had retreated and a quick check n the charts said low tide 7:45. We had beeter get in there quick to avoid being completely marooned on a sand bank 300 metres out. Our good intentions were dashed a little though and rightly so, we gassed for about 10 mins and got the full race report from the epic river Dart challenge, something Shackleton would no doubt have been proud of! After discussing temperatures we all confirmed the sea has definitely turned. Its heading downwards for sure, 16 the last time I got in, and now I'm assured much less. Winter is creeping towrds us. After changing and a showing of THE winter yoda, jealousy all round, we started running widths of the beach puttingoff the inevitable. but in we went. crashing through the rollers, and the temp not too bad. The sea slushy, and at teh winds mercy, with huge barrel like grey clouds looming above. the rain was coming the wind preceeded it. You can imagine spray, large waves, lots of white water and all of us failing to sight effectivley in teh conditions. We managed a width or two agains tthe strong current and retired to birthday treats, chocolate cookies and lemon cakes all homemade how good are we. Joan took the official temp reading, ...13 degs. And she assures me this is correct because she had her glasses on ;-)
So on my reckoning we are looking at approx single digits by end of October. Its going to be a brutal winter I can feel it, I had better man up.
Official club ratings were agreed upon during changing and tea drinking: these will be issued at the end of the year...
definitions:
'Swim' - a reasonable attempt at a swim (at least 10 strokes)
'Snow' - a decent visible covering of snow or snow flakes falling whilst on the beach.
Water Wader: Paddled, spectated, waded throughout the year.
Little dipper: Swam with SSF during the year on and off. At least once.
Bronze: Swam at least once in all twelve months of the year with wetsuit or half on half off.
Silver: Same as Bronze but all non wetsuit.
Gold: rather weather dependent, but same as Silver with at least one 'snow' swim.
Platinum: We were going to say gold but without gloves, but I think this is not really going to have legs. My preference would be to say we will leave out the platinum, unless people want it to be the same as gold but with at least one skinny dip? Or moonlit swim? or both?
Lifetime Services to Swimming award: well, there is only one contender for this one....
Currently we have a few gold contenders in our ranks, I need to check to see if there is a silver, there are many little dippers out there and a couple of waders...
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