Well over 270 Bold & Beautiful swimmers swam across Cabbage Tree Bay and back on the most beautiful summer’s day…Jules Isbill should be feeling very proud as this amazing swim group enjoyed it’s 4th birthday today! We are on 3782 swimmers and could make 4,000 by New Years Day!5 Bolderdashers. 12 Doubles.19.8 degrees in water. 19.6 on land.5.45am sunrise 8.07 sunset8.28am high tide 3.08pm low tideFor those of you not sure about how it all began, 4 years ago on 27th December 2008, Jules thought she was just taking Jenny Knapman for a swim to Shelly and back. Jenny brought along 4 friends, Anita Keelan, Leonie Atkins, Cynthia Alley and Debbie Hanson. They had such a good time, though found it quite challenging and drank a lot of seawater! The next day there were 9 and it has grown from there! Not one day in that 4 years has been missed, someone with a pink cap has always swum. The group has got bigger and bigger. Everyone is welcome. It is free, friendly and has enriched the lives of so many!We are currently sitting on around 3,782 with a good chance of getting in the Guiness Book of Records for the largest Ocean Swim Group in the world!Big congratulations to everyone, particularly Jules and Michael who have put so much in to making this group so successful and rewarding. We really can’t thank you enough.Just a quick reminder from Stephen and Jules below to vote for iSwimtoo!iSwimtoo Needs You!Hi B&Bers, with only 4 days to go iSwimtoo is coming 3rd in the voting
as the World’s Best Open Water Swimming Offering for 2012. We’re 150
behind 1st – if everyone who swam today votes we’ll win! Please vote
and ask a friend to as well, vote here – www.tinyurl.com/iSwimtoo
thank you, Jules & StephenI like to begin my blogs with an early morning photo of Manly waking up…It is ALWAYS worth getting out of bed and down to Manly for 7am!There was a halo of light over Shelly Beach this morning as the sun rose. I knew it was going to be a good day for a birthday swim.
I missed the very brave Bolderdashers swimming to Queenscliffe at 5.40am led by Little Sarah.A good panorama of early morning Manly beach though.
Some of our swimmers took off around 6.15am for a swim around North Head led by Iain Mc Gregor, our English Channel swimmer.
And now the excitement of seeing how many swimmers are going to turn up today on this special day! Around 6.40am it gets very busy around Manly Surf Club as lots of ‘Newbies’ arrive.
Here are the original swimmers who started off this amazing drama 4 years ago!
The walk down the ramp begins and some of us step out for the most exciting swim of our lives! Even if we’ve done it many times before it’s always different and we NEVER regret it!The sun is shining, the sea is quite calm with a few gentle waves to wake us up!
A great shot of you all as I walk along the pipe.
So great to see Tomas back in the water again! Getting quite a regular.
Now we are off swimming to The Point where we wait for everyone. I am frantically looking for fish and am lucky to spot a stingray and some grouper. I hope you all saw them too!
We arrive at Shelly and sing Happy Birthday to ourselves!
Lots of happy faces at Shelly. Over and under the water.
Emily Washbrooke’s birthday today! I think she took the amazing photo of us swimming with the whale from her balcony back in July. And Luke Mellis, aged 9 enjoying his first swim with us. Also Sheri and Pete celebrating B&B’s 4th birthday with their first swim together in 15 months sin baby Brigitte came along.
The Blog Tarts are happy to get in the blog again!
And it’s back to Manly and birthday cake at Bluewater Cafe!
A few of us caught a wave in to shore. These are the BabeWatch girls raising money for Canteen.
And these… are some lovely people who are facing their fears, ocean swimming and raising money for Cure Cancer with CanToo. Annie Crawford, the founder of CanToo is here, another inspiring, caring amazing lady like our own Jules Isbill.A big ‘YAY’ after the swim! We did it again and doesn’t it feel good!
Who is this beautiful, blonde mermaid?
Time is getting on, the blog isn’t finished, so many wonderful moments to capture. A few below of the wonderful fun and friendship at Bluewater Cafe with our 4th birthday cake courtesy of Jenny K. Thank you!
Greg and Christina ‘found’ Mary at The Skiff Club last night and persuaded her to come along! Wilf the Triathlete is on the left (he’s done 120!)
The Pacific Challenge is motivating swimmers to swim more and longer distances but can lead to disputes!
I have to include my cartoons every Thursday. Now up to my 38th Reason to swim with us!Another 6 Reasons to Swim with the Bold and the Beautiful!
Remember Jules still has some Bold and Beautiful Calendars for sale, only $20 with $5 from each going to The Royal Far West.To read Michael’s tips on how to stay safe in the surf please click hereThe Birthday Blog is finished! I hope I captured some of the magic of today’s swim with such a wonderful group of people in our favourite corner of the world! Please come again Newbies and if you didn’t make it both ways this time try a little further next time. Happy New Year everyone!Elaine aka LaineyLoo xx
27/12/12 – The Bold and Beautiful 4th Birthday Hip Hip Hooray!!!
27/12/201222
22 comments
Lesley
27/12/2012 at 1:19 pm
You took yr time!!! 12.30Pm!!! love the cartoons… Great fun blog..sounds like great swim!!! I missed it…slept thru my alarm!!
Michael [EX CI]
27/12/2012 at 1:34 pm
Lesley how could you????????????!!!!!! On a day such as today!
E-Lane that was a lovely blog! You sure did capture some of the magic of the day.
Happy 4th birthday to us all. See you all tomorrow when the conditions will be the same except the swell will be halved.
Seana Smith
27/12/2012 at 1:42 pm
Hello, loved my first swim with B & B this morning. Hope to swim a few more times in these school holidays. What a beautiful morning and a real pleasure to be part of the birthday celebrations.
John S
27/12/2012 at 1:43 pm
butt who’s the blond mermaid???
Great cartoons E-laine, covering a great swim…..
Elaine de Jager
27/12/2012 at 1:44 pm
We aren’t all as amazingly technologically skilled as you Lesley and I did have a loss of internet! Did you like the proof you should go blond?
Pacific Jules
27/12/2012 at 1:46 pm
Great swim ! A wonderful atmosphere with wonderful people and a blog to match, thank you Elaine.
Who would have thought, 4 years ago, that first swim would lead to what we have today. A truly marvelous community group of nearly 4000 people, encompassing swimmers of absolutely all levels coming together to enjoy the beautiful waters and the fabulous company, all swimming and ‘coffeeing’ together. Magic !
Thank you for the cake and for being the reason for our first ever swim Jenny K xx
Check out today’s attendance… over 270 swimmers ticked and only 10 of them don’t have a photo on our wall of fame !
Little Sarah Abbott
27/12/2012 at 1:52 pm
Lovely early swim with the sunrise, as captured so well by our great new photographer! (Really love the cartoons, too!) Honoured to have Wilf join us for this B’crawl – his first for the season and second ever. Best conditions for a while with no blueys or jimbles:-)
The cake was delicious – thx to Jules, Jenny K and all!
…and North Head gang – an update and names pls! Now that is Bold….
annie "yay"
27/12/2012 at 1:53 pm
Congratulations to Bolds and the amazing originals for starting such a special community. It is life changing. Great blog Lainey-Loo as always…you are a star. I’m secretly cheering my blog tarting ways…all 3 of them including a yay….double YAY!!!
Snorks reviewing from across the other side of the world
27/12/2012 at 2:51 pm
Elaine I’m just confirming only one original blog tart made a photo today (with LSA getting a special mention though too) ,
DWSS could you explain the term ‘Blog Tart’ for these newbies and people who appear in only one shot but are given such a title? I thank you.
Little Sarah Abbott
27/12/2012 at 3:16 pm
Thx for the special mention, Snorks…… rumour has it that you’ll be jetting in for a special appearance very soon…..:-)
Season’s Greetings to you and all Overseas…
Ragnil, loved your pic and description of your swim group.
Dolphin Whisperer
27/12/2012 at 4:37 pm
Hey Snorks. I hope your enjoying your holiday.
It must be hard for you, that is, spending money, travelling a long way to miss out on swimming and blog tarting.
For the newbies, blog tarting is the act of doing whatever is required to get your photo on the blog. These events are then noticed, logged on a select spread sheet controlled by Snorks here and used as evidence of outrageous blog tarting consistency.
Some regular body parts used for this purpose are;
Little Sarah – Mouth – the master planner
Lesley – butt
Julie – cleavage with a planted jimble sting for greater effect but not really necessary when cleavage is concerned.
Rainer – Little Sarah’s sidekick- Lips until ineffective and then resorted to his Niple.
Snorkles – Butt, Tattoo above butt, Head – Special mention in her ability to get her head into any photo and undisputed blog tart queen.
Special Mention to Annie Yay and her blue smurf suit who has managed a late run for the title but as a beginner is unaware of the stranglehold snorks has on the competition as the leader, counter, controller.
Annie,Ill have a word to you regarding the great blog tart scandal of September when Lips used his blue smurf suit for points.
Dolphin Whisperer
27/12/2012 at 4:42 pm
Great Blog E Laine. I love your cartoons and Im not sure if everyone is aware of your effort to get there early to make sure you capture the whole day. Well Done. Great cartoons!!!
Julez and Jenny, Congratulations.
Massive effort, Massive result.
Alyson
27/12/2012 at 6:47 pm
in her defence I was trying to get greater blog tarting acclaim, but it seems the photo with me got the cut from the final press release???
Alyson
27/12/2012 at 6:48 pm
Happy Birthday to us! what a great morning to celebrate 4 years! perfect conditions and another great swim! great to see Tomas back out there again too. Love the cartoons Elaine – especially the expectant mammals 😉
Robbie Byrne
27/12/2012 at 7:15 pm
Happy birthday B&B manly, an awesome achievement to not only get to 4, but also to keep it such an inclusive group that caters for the young, old, strong swimmers, slow swimmers (Rainer), Aussies and ex pats, visitors and friends&family. (And winston the dog)
annie "yay"
27/12/2012 at 7:35 pm
Oooh I love a scandal…a smurf scandal at that. I’m all ears!
'The Lips' formerly known as Rainer
27/12/2012 at 8:22 pm
Thanks DWSS. Excellent summary and great introduction to blog tarting for all our new members.
Annie – in a nutshell, the great blog tart scandal of September was triggered by my attempt to gain an unfair advantage by way of using unauthorized props, i.e. the smurf suit. As set out in regulation 5B of the blog tart charta, and i quote here, props are only permitted when previously approved by the blog tarting committee. The smurf suit is still under revision at this stage and it is quite likely it will get committee approval eventually. However, until such time you are running the risk of invalidating all spreddy points gained whilst using the suit. I think you should be aware of this.
'The Lips' formerly known as Rainer
27/12/2012 at 8:26 pm
Oh Rob, I’m not even going to respond to this. We talk once you have you’re first Bolderdash under your belt. And by belt I mean your winter wetsuit!
'The Lips' formerly known as Rainer
27/12/2012 at 8:31 pm
I’d like to join everyone else (except Rob) in congratulating all BnB swimmers to this fantastic achievement.. 4 years, almost 4000 swimmers. What an amazing story!!
Jules, Jenny – you shold be very proud of what you’ve set in motion.
Pacific Jules
27/12/2012 at 8:51 pm
Check out this special video made by Mauricio of this morning’s magical swim. It’s well worth the watch 🙂 It’s just fabulous and really captures the morning perfectly, thanks so much Mauricio !
http://youtu.be/nMlnJO14l-8
Deb hanson
27/12/2012 at 9:05 pm
FANTASTIC
Laney-Loo formerly known as E-lane
28/12/2012 at 10:59 am
Glad you enjoyed your first swim with us Seana. You must come again soon!