Sunny skies and calm seas greeted Richard, Stephen, Matt, Rob, Bev, Dave, Sutho Me and special guest Anne for the 2.8km splash (AKA the Big Swim) from Palm to Whale beach today.
A big shout out for Anne who joined us as our special guest and token female at short notice after a chance conversation during a yacht race with Chris on Saturday.
As entrants in the “Fins and Skins” category we were last to go off at 10.21am, which meant that we weren’t mowed down by other faster swimmers on the way round.
It also meant that we had the most leisurely start of all eight waves and were able to ‘play the to the gallery’ as we entered the water.
My highlight was spotting a big jellyfish about 1km into the swim just near the surface. My lowlight was not checking the batteries on my camera, so didn’t have any juice to capture the moment.
Conditions became more challenging as we got round the headland and the wind rose, but everyone dug in and kept going once the beach was visible.
We finished as we started – as one big group – all safely round the course and (I think it’s fair to say) all with slightly tired shoulders.
Our finish time? Well let’s just say that we didn’t hang around for the medals ceremony.
Nice work ‘the idiots’!!! I think that’s the longest swim we’ve ever undertaken. An idiot record!
And a big ‘Thank You’ too to Stephen for nudging us all into making the effort.
See y’all back at the steps!
Great post Chris and thanks for bringing the GoPro – shame it wasn’t up to snuff like the idiots were 🙂 Killer distance. I would love to compete without the cramps… one day…