An Extra Special Day

Today is an extra special day.

January 26 marks the landing of the First Fleet, a convoy of 11 ships carrying convicts, at Port Jackson in 1788. This event represents the founding of the colony New South Wales. From 1946, January 26 was called Australia Day in all states and territories, and since 1994, the Australia Day public holiday has been on January 26 throughout the country.

Today was special to us in our little corner of the world for a few other reasons.

There’s a big surf carnival at Manly today and we were asked to start and finish our swim at Shelley today. What a perfect day for it!

Dogs too. This is Woody

 

Today is also Lainey’s 8th anniversary of swimming with the B&B and that’s pretty special. You will know Lainey, she is a regular swimmer and runner and takes amazing underwater photos. Congrats Lainey and thanks for bringing the nutty seedy slice. It was delicious.

 

Here’s Lainey again with some other longtime (never old!) swimmers

 

 

And as if there wasn’t enough to celebrate, Bryon (with goggles around his neck) and Mel (not pictured) have just become new parents of baby Rosalie. Wonderful news, Bryon and Mel, congrats

 

There were lots of swimmers today.

 

 

Including  newbies, eager to be initiated into the esoterica of the B&B

 

 

 

Very frequent swimmer, Danny

 

There were Australia day formalities

 

An acknowledgement of country by Tony early in the proceedings – very apt that we acknowledge the traditional owners of this land today even though it is not a day they celebrate.

Cathy led us through the 2 verses of our National Anthem.

 

 

As if that is not enough to celebrate, Ian had something special up his sleeve. 2 special somethings, one for each arm.

 

Special Something No. 1

The Medibank free+active random swimmer of the month for January is Sue Marinan. Sue started swimming with B&B exactly 3 years ago today, and in that short period has swum more than 3000 km. She loves the cameraderie in the club and likes to constantly challenge herself to do as many kilometers as she can. She intends to use the $100 Rebel voucher to buy more swim gear.

Special Something No. 2

The Medibank free+active random Swimmer of the Year is Sterling Brain. Sterling started swimming about five and a half years ago and has clocked up more than 2500 km. He loves swimming with his mates most mornings and enjoys racing them back to Manly. He also like the after-swim exhilaration he feels, as well as a well-deserved coffee. With his six children to support, the $500 MasterCard voucher will come in very handy.

 

If you want to be in the running to win the swimmer of the year this year, all you need to do is to swim at least once in each month and log your swims.

Following the celebrations, we all headed to the water.
So many swimmers!

A lovely sight – a family swimming together

Once in the water, I went looking for marine life

Lady groper (huh?)

 

Flathead did not want me near it

 

Yellowtail – they eat bluebottles.

This groper did not want company. What did I do?

In interesting piece of marine vegetation

Sergeant Baker

Those green fish

Below the surface

 

A stingaree. We checked each other out

Here’s another dog, creating a cloud of sand with her waggy tail

 

Our Karen is a woman of many talents. Here she is executing a very impressive Sirsasana. Lucy and Janet couldn’t believe their eyes.

Stats

700 swimmers
49 newbies
22.6 degrees.

And now a word from management

The Monthly Dinner is back!! – 12^th February 2019 – Guest Speaker

The first B&B monthly dinner for the year will be held on Tuesday 12th February at 6.30 pm at Bluewater Restaurant. Our guest on the night will be one of our swimmers, Nicole Piha, who is an award-winning sports manager. Nicole has trained Super Rugby teams, as well as international cricket and rugby teams. Through her business, Ocean Swim Support, Nicole supports long distance ocean swimmers through training, planning and logistics before and during the swim. Nicole will talk about some of the iconic swims as well as the logistics around training and planning.

Please book early for this event as it is sure to be popular. The cost of the dinner is great value at only $25 a head, which includes shared entrees, and a selection of mains to choose from (including a vegetarian option). Glasses of beer or wine and desserts are also available at the special price of only $5 each. Numbers are limited, so bookings are essential:  To avoid disappointment and secure your spot please book below. at www.boldandbeautifulmanly.com.au/bb-bluewater-monthly-dinner.html .

What am I listening to? Cant’s say I’ve listened to this recently but it’s good for today