75 Bold & Beautiful swimmers.
Yeh it’s flat… North Head has protected us once again from the massive southerly swell, enabling us to have a beautiful relaxing swim in idyllic conditions.
Shame it doesn’t protect us from that arctic howling wind though. But boy oh boy was it worth bracing the chill. The water was pristine !!
The wetsuits came in handy as a windbreaker at Shelly
Whilst some of us doing ‘winter without wetsuit’ tried to stay as protected as possible under the water…
I saw two wobbegongs
A gorgeous Shovel Nosed Shark with a damaged nose. It looks like something may have been trapped around it at some point which thankfully now has come off.
Sooo many yellow tail scad. There were two beautiful big king fish amongst them which were keeping them on their fins
Lots of lovely gracious Port Jackson Sharks
A lovely big bright blue groper calmly cruising past as we rounded the point ready to head for shore.
But… hot news straight from Mark, the head of the fish department at the Australian Museum, courtesy of our very own swimming volunteer there, Jane Stevenson, the Estuary Catfish has had a name change… it’s common name is now Estuary Cobbler !
What a fabulous swim, with hardly any jellies. Well worth the facing the frost.
7 swimmers even continued on for a double with 4 of those braving a triple including one of our seven first timers this morning, John MS.
Whilst we enjoy more beautiful calm conditions in our protected waters, one of our youngest B&B’s, Lilou is ready to go out in her wettie, on her very own hand crafted surfboard and carve up the big waves that are coming in further up the coast this weekend 🙂
Check out Sprout today, you can see us all gathered at what should be the point ;-)… not to make a point 😉 in the background of the 5th photo.
Graham K is thinking of us all as he is doing it tough on his balcony whilst watching the sunrise over Honiara.
A massive congratulations to one of our swimmers, Murray Stewart who won olympic gold in the k4 1000m event last night. Totally awesome !!!! A tremendous performance and such a well deserved gold medal for Murray and his crew. Absolutely awesome, well done Murray xx
Now to a slightly different Murray… Murray’s at Manly kindly invited all of us who were lucky enough to swim with Mrs Whale on 24th July, for a complimentary whale ale two evenings ago. We had a whale of a time enjoying the venue, the ale and most importantly the whale talk. Thanks to Dave from ishootmermaids for these great photos.
Air Temperature 7.0
Sunrise 6.39am
Sunset 5.22pm
Low Tide: 7.32am
High Tide: 2.15pm
To read Michael’s tips on how to stay safe in the surf please click here
14 comments
Lesley
10/08/2012 at 11:13 am
re: whale beer photos – between the 2nd photo and last photo Michael put on about 20 kilos!! hee hee
Kinda glad I wasn’t swimming today!!! brrrrr
Cute little grouper photo!! And Lilou VERY cute!!
Michael [EX CI]
10/08/2012 at 11:23 am
I noticed ‘mrs whale’ ticked today for her winter swim, but I think someone may be having me on. I would definitely notice a Whale with a biro!
Pacific Jules
10/08/2012 at 11:42 am
Hey, guess what… hot news straight in from Eco Diver Dave (same as Dave from ishootmermaids).
Our Shovel Nosed Shark photographed above has had an elastic hair band stuck around its nose since last year, that is until last night when some of his divers managed to remove it. Fantastic !
They have named him/her Snoots 🙂
They are hopeful that its nose should heal, although he/she will remain recognisable by the scar.
As Dave says… another good reason to wear a swimming cap.
Pacific Jules
10/08/2012 at 11:49 am
Two photos of Murray winning Gold added to the blog above, one with his crew and the other with his cousin’s kids 🙂
Lesley
10/08/2012 at 12:20 pm
How funny you took the photo of Snoots today Jules and only last night she was freed!! Good to hear!
Jane
10/08/2012 at 1:21 pm
I have to abase myself – I mistakenly credited Gaetan with Michel’s superb video yesterday – sorry Michel! And yet another triumph for our fab B&B camerapeople – Mark at the OzMus wants to put some of the video onto the OzMus website.
John
10/08/2012 at 2:03 pm
Good to know that ‘Snoots’ is now free of that hair band.
Congratulations to the K4 1000m team,who led all the way with a close finish.
fifi
10/08/2012 at 2:44 pm
The news about the Shovelnose is just so great: I was about to burst into tears when I first saw it as I thought it had a plastic ring on its snout. What WONDERFUL people to have saved it! Thank you Eco-Dave!
Shovelnose sharks are just the most lovely gentle creatures, very happy to know it is safe.
GRAHAM KENT get back here. Monster waves tomorrow and I need my buddy….
Michael [EX CI]
10/08/2012 at 2:54 pm
Actually Fifi, MSW is predicting NO DETECTABLE SWELL for Saturday and Sunday at The Bower and Winki Pop.
There will be a huge [7.2METRE] swell, but it will be totally south! So it will be interesting to see.
We’ve always got half way anyway.
fifi
10/08/2012 at 4:23 pm
Michael I just went down after watching the monster waves here at curly, to find that manly was tame as tame could be….it actually looked really nice, lovely dark green with little waves.
Curl Curl looks like the apocalypse.
I also want to say that Jules was such a champion today , diving down so far to get those fab pics, I was very impressed at the lung capacity! Thank you Jules.
Slower Shaun
10/08/2012 at 5:14 pm
Ouch, schedulled to swim that day. Late client meeting change of plans.
Whale Ale night – a twist of the knife. ouch.
Oh well. each swim is special in its own way anyway.
Little Sarah Abbott
10/08/2012 at 7:04 pm
Fantastic achievement for Murray Stewart and his crew…. lovely to hear that he’s one of us!
Friends in Hong Kong are hearing about Mrs Whale too….. and Lesley, I eventually recognized myself in one of the last batch of pics which Jules kindly put on the blog last week – so I didn’t imagine it all:-)
Jane
10/08/2012 at 8:19 pm
And Mark wants to keep Jules’s Snoots and “Manly Cobbler” pics for the website. Stephen Keable (OzMus Marine Invertebrates) was impressed with her beautiful Salps photo. I’m going to print it out and frame it for my wall.
dave
12/08/2012 at 11:33 pm
yep snoots the shovel nose ray .. may be a resident .. and a closer look may determine if he is a he or a her .. will be great if any sightings can be forwarded to us thru jules .. one reason mermaids DON’T tie their hair back 🙂