05/05/12 – Avatar underwater scenery

As many as 129 swimmers in Manly today, which is pretty good considering half of the B&Bs are making WA and Byron Bay unsafe this weekend.

The water was chocka full of those pretty little blue and shiny dots. It felt like being on the Avatar film set, claim those who have experienced both.

A little stretching before our strenuous (ish) daily swim. The ever smiling Gareth signing in, and our Superman Ian checking he did it right.

Robin, to the right of John x 2, flew in to Sydney at 05.05am and hurried over to join us in the water. Welcome home, Robin.

 

 

 

 

The very bold and beautiful aquatic creatures enter the surf and shoot off through the crashing waves without fear nor hesitation.

 

 

Here we are at the point with a sunrise reminiscent of a Jehova’s Witnesses pamphlet. Love those sunny rays through the clouds!

Nice to see the multilingual and very friendly fraulein Ariane swim with us again this morning.

 

 

Like a pack of Dr Doolittles we are – talking and swimming with the animals. Gorgeous! And did you notice the schools of hung-over mullets? That’s what they looked like, not knowing if to take a sharp turn left or right as they came towards us. That’s Saturday morning for ya, especially if you’re a mullet.

 

 

Sue’s stretchy swim stroke, and Sue in the Saturday sun. Sensational.

 

 

You can tell the yummy young surfer dudes aren’t wearing their spectacles when they’re out searching for tubes and hanging five. They were hitting on a bunch of middle aged, pink capped ladies, for crying out loud. And cry out loud we did, or else we really would’ve got hit smack bang in our pretty, semi-wrinkled faces. Attracta added an arm in the air to the warning cry, just in case.

 

 

Methods of post-swim de-briefing a) wearing beautifully bold and colourful towels and b) sipping on a coffee in the sunshine with girlfriends. We are soooo lucky, aren’t we?

Looks like the Byron Bay postcard from Lesley got stuck in my letterbox. While in Byron, Lesley, Gab and Heidi joined the local swim group, who, much like the B&B, meet every morning for a social ocean swim. Difference is the Byroners swim at 8am, whereas in the hard working Manly we start at 7am.

Lesley also spotted Bruce and Sandy in the swim. Please keep sending us photos, thanks 🙂

No, the censors were not interfering with yesterday’s blog, although after looking at this pic submitted by Stephen Coulter of Iain McGregor on tour in WA, you would be excused for thinking maybe they should have (interfered). Next to this sign, paradoxically or ironically (?) labelled Crocodile Safety, our very own Channel crossing Iain is caught with his pants down.

The boys are swimming Lake Argyle this morning, so hopefully we’ll see a few more pics of their adventures in tomorrow’s blog.

Temperature in the water: 21.2 degrees Celsius.