102 Bold & Beautiful swimmers braved a little seaweed, swell and maggots (!!!) this morning to enjoy a bumpy swim in paradise!
Every swim is different, every day is different and today was no exception!
As I drive down from Avalon on my Blog Day Thursday, I’m hoping it’s going to be a great swim day. Most of all I’m hoping for at least a bit of sunlight to peep through the clouds. I’m hoping there won’t be any blue-bottles, jimbles or sea-lice and I’m hoping the sea isn’t going to be too rough. I know whatever we get it will always be special in some way! What we got today was a bit different from the usual. We got an entrance in to the water with ‘moving sand’. Hang on it wasn’t sand, it was maggots!! Millions of them, all crawling around at the end of the ramp!
It started off with the early-lappers looking a bit worried.
Tim Ettle wasn’t worried. He’s used to his Grandma serving them up on his ‘chip butties’ back in hometown Halesowen, (near Birmingham, UK.)
John 007 Bond is more of a wimp. He thinks we should enter and exit the water over there, away from the maggots.
Hong Kong Triad Queen Little Sarah is thinking of a way to sell them on the black market to her Chinese Herbalist ‘friends’
Another beautiful sunrise over Shelly and yes the sun is peeking through the clouds.
Now the 7am swimmers start to arrive. I’m really pleased to see a lovely friend Chris, coming to try the swim for the first time.
But the usual smiley faces are replaced by varying expressions. All the talk is about maggots! Bruce Baird had no problem with maggots as he has walked the floors of parliament.
Vanessa’s expression has to be the best! The next 3 photos are courtesy of Stephen.!
We all go in though!
Love this Brucey photo!
The swim was bumpy but still glorious and the water was warm!
A few sets of waves so some people opted for a Halfway entrance (or were they scared of the maggots?) From Fairy Bower they might have seen some of these beautiful fish I caught on camera. You have to look in the rocky ledges and crevasses by the yellow hut.
And this gorgeous leatherjacket.
Yesterday I managed to see and photograph some ‘old wives’. They are beautiful fish. They were hanging out around the rocks next to the tall palm tree, the northern side of Fairy Bower.
At Shelly it is the birthday of the most lovely Skinny Swimmer, and all round beautiful person, Anna Alvasdotter. Happy Birthday AA!
We all love our inspiring, warm, brave and articulate Anna!
Lips is looking more desperate to get on the blog each day.
A blurry picture below, but captures the amazing camaraderie of this Bold & Beautiful group of swimmers
I’ll finish with another couple of inspiring swimmers. The lovely Anne E who did the Bolderdash and Shelly today with a crook back, and Annie Yay!
So we had to walk over a bed of maggots today but nothing deters us from enjoying our B&B swims! We’ve had jimbles, sea-lice and blueys, stormwater and seaweed but we keep coming back.
What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger!
Tomorrow the maggots will have gone and who knows what we’ll get, maybe a rainbow, maybe a whale or a dolphin. Whatever we get we know it will be the best start we can get to any day and we will NEVER regret that swim!
WE are hoping to run the 6km and 10km Badge Swims this Saturday but stormy conditions are forecas. John 007 Bond asks us to keep our eye on the blog for latest info.
“One of our fellow B&B’ers, Sebastian Terry is running an event
in aid of Camp Quality next month. It’s the “100 Things” (Check out
www.100things.com.au) Documentary Premiere on 8th @ The Steyne Hotel.
Ticket price includes 4 x free drinks, free food, free raffle entry and
global premiere of documentary which will be on the Discovery channel.
Cost: $50 with 100% of money going to camp Quality! Tickets and info
available at http://events.ticketbooth.com.au/event/Premiere”
3 Bolderdash. A few swimmers enjoyed an early lap into Shelly. 3 Newbies.
Happy birthday to Anna A and Isabel today !
Jules has asked us to post some new tips for swimming in the surf. They are courtesy of champion Ironman Craig ‘Riddo’ Riddington.
He has put this RIP/ Surf swim education document together for the B&B and its a good read.
http://www.boldandbeautifulmanly.com.au/safety-in-the-surf.html
Water Temperature 23.6
Air Temperature 21.3
Sunrise 6.36am
Sunset 7.40pm
High Tide: 5.58am
Low Tide: 12.47pm
Until next Thursday
Lainey Loo
14 comments
Lesley
21/02/2013 at 11:59 am
OOOh yeah I love the Brucey photo too !! That should go on their wall at home!!
OMG – those maggots!! what a shame the fish can’t get at them – a perfect meal for them all to get nice and healthy and big!
Good fun blog Elaine – Hope you get better stats than i did yesterday (lowest hits for the blog in 6 months!! hahahahahhahah)
John
21/02/2013 at 12:39 pm
Nice fish pics Elaine. Have a great day Anna and Sophie.
The forecast for Saturday is for a big swell and some wind ocean side. If conditions are bad the the alternative for the 10k and 6k swims is the Harbour which may be less affected by an easterly wind. If however both the ocean and harbour are too rough,unfortunately we would have to postpone till the following Saturday.
Elaine de Jager
21/02/2013 at 12:52 pm
Does anyone else click on the blog using Facebook and hasn’t been able to lately? Lesley, that is probably why stats are low. Nothing to do with you. We all know you are the Queen Blogster who can throw an amusing and entertaining blog together whilst juggling work and other responsibilities and will always step in to do a blog when others can’t. Well done you!
secret squirrel
21/02/2013 at 1:05 pm
E-laine lovely comical blog.
Happy birthday AA. Have a great day.
Pretty Lesley, I’ll always read your blogs! You rock girl.
Little Sarah Abbott aka Hong Kong Triad Queen
21/02/2013 at 1:05 pm
Love the blog, pics & cartoons, LL & Mr Coulter!
Thx for the maggoty plug….. five points for each bucket of maggots collected for shipment to Hong Kong:-)
Little Sarah Abbott aka Hong Kong Triad Queen
21/02/2013 at 1:12 pm
There was a lot of attempted bribery at breakfast to persuade 007 to change days and courses for the 10K swim to fit in with surfing, Friday night partying, maggot-collecting and Curly white-pointers, but, luckily, our heroic and valiant 007 was happy to enjoy the birthday cake and cups of coffee and not be swayed. Rules are rules!
Good news for the Triad gang. The end-of-season going rate for a 10k badge is now $100 and I can assure you we have several takers – see Lips or myself:-))
Magic Hands
21/02/2013 at 1:18 pm
Happy Birthday Anna!
(…and Great blog Elaine)
lesley
21/02/2013 at 1:36 pm
I don’t mind if noone reads my blog – I don’t write it for adulation I do it for my own personal enjoyment 🙂
Elaine – I am looking into your issue with facebook (well Tim is)
'The Lips' formerly known as Rainer
21/02/2013 at 1:54 pm
Lesbutt, I really feel your blog yesterday didnt get the recognition it deserved. To make up for it:
Fantastic blog yesterday! I encourage everyone to go back and read it. Photos were amazing. The writing was superb. And don’t even get me started on those speech bubbles. That seagull maggot party had me in stitches!!
Like all that wasn’t enough fun – check out Stephen’s photos at the bottom of yesterday’s blog! That Blue Groper couldn’t be any bluer!!
All in all a fantastic piece of journalism. 10 out of 10 from me..
Brucy
21/02/2013 at 2:03 pm
Haha thanks Lesley!! It was great photography, but obviously we gave Stephen a lot to work with…
Happy birthday Sophie and Anna!! And well done to Sophie’s husband Geoff, who only swims once a year on her birthday – romanchiku!!
xx
"Snorkles"
21/02/2013 at 2:16 pm
Fantastic blogs for the last TWO days!!!
Elaine capturing those maggots – they are truly horrid!
Lips are you warming up nicely for Sat??!!!
Michelle
21/02/2013 at 2:19 pm
Happy happy birthday Anna (&Isabel! whom i dont know but am sure is a very lovely person )…great blog e-laine …love the maggot storyline …and keen to hear the backstory to yr signature shot…
fifi
21/02/2013 at 4:00 pm
Gee, Jules and Michael,
see what you are missing out on? Maggot-fest.
You must really be regretting moving over to the Indian Ocean….
Alyson
21/02/2013 at 9:02 pm
Maggots! Eewww!