16/01/2015 – Fabulous Friday Swim and Yesterday’s Turtle!

I was so incredibly excited yesterday after seeing this beautiful turtle swim from the ocean floor to the surface… so starting off with a photo of him! It’s coming up 4 years since I did my first B&B swim, Australia Day 2011. It’s 3 years since… after avidly reading the blogs whilst on holiday in Queensland,I  decided I’d prefer to be in Manly swimming than anywhere! I resolved to swim as much as possible and Ted and I swim 6 times a week now and have foregone latish nights for very early mornings and live for our amazing Manly swims and all the bits before and after!Thank you everyone for helping make this such a great part of our lives!

Yesterday’s swim was magical as the water was incredibly clear with so much marine life including rays and the turtle. (More on that later). Today’s swim was beautiful too, calm, warm and almost as clear. Rays, duskies, the turtle and many fish were spotted by some lucky swimmers.

 

All the photos are mine except this beautiful sunrise shot by Heather from her 8th floor apartment!Isn’t this little corner of the world the best place to be early mornings??!!

 

Over 50 Drinks Expressers today headed out at 6.30am…

Sterling missed out on being in Tim the fat bishop’s (his self-description)blog yesterday, for the first time ever, so was intent on being in today’s! Zab seems to be doing some kind of bum dance on the left hand side.

 

Peta, Cate and Derek. Cate tells me (as a few others did too) that my turtle photos on Facebook yesterday have encouraged them to come and swim! Cate is a marriage celebrant if anyone is thinking of popping the question. We also have our lovely Sophie Coombes who is one too.

 

Happy and colourful Booty Campers give me a wave!

 

Karen is selling a nearly new Orca top range wetsuit for only $150 (rrp $500). If you are interested tell us in blog comments. It’s a bargain!

 

John Kelly calls the “7 o’clock” and in we go! One of this little lot has come all the way from Calgary for our swim!

 

Mike’s wife Louise is getting quite a regular. I reckon if you do it for around 3 days out of 5 you’ll get addicted.

 

The Can Too swim went well on Sunday with 400 swimmers. This is the amazing founder of Can Too Annie Crawford, on the right with her friend Brigette up from Melbourne.

 

JK with Emily and her very pregnant friend. He shows his victory sign again.

 

Nobody dares stray too far from The Point with JK back in town!

 

Skye, Catherine, Greg and Melisse if I remember correctly!

 

Fiddler ray on the way over…

 

A lovely 32 weeks pregnant Catherine. Unfortunately the mullet that were eye level sped off as the camera clicked.

 

Only 177 swimmers recorded but with around 60 early swimmers there were way more than 120 at Shelly.

John 007, Sarah, Rusty, Heather and Pirate Pete.

 

Sterling bought his ‘height challenged’ little boy along today for the first time. You can just about see his bushy Spanish looking eyebrows and one eye on the bottom right hand corner of the photo…

 

More swimmers at Shelly enjoying the warm water and sun’s rays…

 

Justus, Jim and Elizabeth

 

Our relief blogger Dave with one of our newbies today.

 

 

Angela calls the ‘Let’s Go!’

 

Some of us go and… some hang around for a chat or to go turtle/ray/fish spotting on the way back!

 

My friend Nicky joins us after a long period of broken promises. We have our B&B celebrants, Nicky has just bought a church at Byron Bay where you can get married or even rent out for wild parties! She did find some amazing dress-ups in the loft when they were tidying up. (So there’s a good chance Tayls has already stayed there 😉

 

 

 

Loads of luderick in the shallows as we swim in to shore.

Apologies if anyone thinks the blog is too long (and people have complained about long blogs believe it or not), but I had to include my photos of yesterday’s stunning swim. Yesterday we swam in the  most beautiful, amazing fish tank where marine creatures swim freely and safely. It’s called Cabbage Tree Bay. I knew as soon as I put my face in the water it was going to be a special swim. The water was incredibly clear and all that marine life was on show. The luderick, mados, hardy heads, gropers and leather jackets were all on display as we headed to The Point.

 

Not sure of the name of this interesting looking fish. Is it a type of puffer fish Jane? Sharnie?

 

 

The mados, old wives, yellowtail and hardy heads were all back!

 

John Lehman told me about a ray covered in sand near halfway…

 

Then it sped off and joined a more attractive (male species unfortunately grrr!!) eagle ray with purple markings on it’s back.

 

How lucky to get 3 rays together in the one frame!

 

Then Jalna and I swam over to a group looking below to the ocean floor. They quietly said the beautiful turtle was hiding under a rock. I tried to get a shot but too deep and handed the camera to Mauricio. He got the shot above.

 

Then… just as we had almost given up waiting, that beautiful creature paddled up to the surface as the sun rays sparkled on it’s shell! It was amazing! And I was so lucky to be just there with camera in hand! He was incredibly cute but more importantly he looked healthy as he has an injured back right flipper and front left according to Sharnie and Nick. Please don’t let anyone hurt him if you ever see anyone near him in CTB. Apparently he was entangled in fishing net which led to his injury but he seems to be recovering well.

 

 

Our shark protesctor, Sharnie chasing sharks (and checking they haven’t got fish hooks in them).

 

As I eventually got out of the water the most dangerous thing of the day was a yellow bellied snake in the shower!

 

This sight was a bit frightening too as Dick (a shortened version of his real name) tries to copy a lovely Argentinian swimmer modelling the new brief bikini bottoms!

As well as eagle rays and fiddler rays we also swam with Dr Ray who joined us with his friendly Rastas!

 

 

 

To finish off today’s story with another photo at the ‘in’ place to be, The Benches… Karen has heard that Dreamboat has a lot of experience dealing with itches and rashes. He has a special cream called ‘Itches’ which he carries everywhere!

 

I hope this link works below. It’s to the fantastic video of our swim Stephen Coulter has made, all at a speeded up pace with great music.

click here

A big thank you to those swimmers who swam in the Can Too swim last Sunday. It was rainy, miserable and cold waiting for our races to start and the sea choppy but that didn’t stop a few of us. Krystina battled her fear of the surf and Stephen, Karen, Adam, Matt and Ed did a great job. Our ‘Spaniard’ came first and was crowned ‘King of Cabbage Tree Bay’!

Ted, Peter Anthony and Tayls went in the Sprint race and it was lovely to see Derek, Isabel and Gordy and Gizelle in the parents race. Sorry if I’ve forgotten to mention a few of you but thanks for supporting a great cause. Hopefully more B&Bers will do it next year.

 

Stats
Swimmers: 177 recored but loads more!
Newbies: 14
Water temp: 22.5

 

B&B i-Log
The B&B i-Log is the best way to capture your swims!!  Log your swim ANYTIME of day using this really efficient and easy way to ensure your swim is recorded in the daily attendance and on the Pacific Challenge.. To get started, send an email to Ian Forsterugoboyo@gmail.com (This is not a link so please copy and paste into your email). He will check that your email address is activated on the attendance register then send you info on how to get started.

Staying safe
Are you prepared for the return of the surf? Remember that there are no badges for scaring yourself silly!  While it is great to extend your boundaries, it is important to know your limits.  Do read these excellent tips on staying safe in the surf.  To read, or even download, click here.

Sorry it’s SOOO long!Have a wonderful day folks!

Lainey Loo

(with Wilf Deck who is our oldest swimmer and celebrating his 80’th birthday at The Steyne on Tuesday 3rd Feb). He is very kindly inviting ALL B&B swimmers to his party!