But quite a few did. I thought I might swim from Shelly today but didn’t even do that. Heavy rain with big waves and large swell everywhere turned me off. I had fun watching the surf skis working out early today plus the surfers and the odd group of swimmers. I walked to the wall...

6.12am. The beach is dark and empty. Magic Seaweed predicts 6-9 foot so that roaring noise is probably gigantic surf. Low tide 7.32am so sandbanks will be kicking up sharp, dumpy waves. Ran into 2 die-hards, Geoff a Hawaiian ironman veteran and his mate. Talk of big sets out at the point, maybe swimming on...

This blog is coming to you from cloudy, rainy, sunny…not sure what the weather is actually doing…Byron Bay!! Luckily I have my WOW Manly correspondent team in the form of Lainey and Amanda G. The swim in Byron was beautiful. There’s always a strong current running along the beach and today was no different. Starting East...

Breaking News: They fixed the clock … Tony: “It’s true!”   ——– Just as well.  The wrong times had been driving Lesley up the pole   —– And Maya didn’t know when to turn her light off …   —- Others had been trapped in different time zones …   ——– And it’s been interfering...

Our lovely fortnightly blogger Andrea unfortunately can’t blog anymore so asked me to blog today. As I had to go to the city early it’s a few photos of recent sightings and just a few of today’s swim,  then I’m reposting a blog I wrote exactly 5  years ago today about the ‘Big 5 of...

Outside temp: 13 Water temp: 22.1 Viz: 6/10 Happy Nippy Monday crew – Today was a little reminder of what the upcoming months will be bringing I’ve recently finished ‘Why we swim’ by Bonnie Tsui and will try squeeze in a few insights, over the next few weeks, in the form of some great excerpts...

Today’s blog is a dry blog as my skin is still healing from the chafing it got during a long swim last weekend. Feeling very vitamin sea deprived, I’m sure you can sympathise.  Here is Lainey and Ted’s sweet Tibetan Spaniel Freddy in canine anticipation of a treat Scary close-up, glad Veena thinks it’s funny...

No matter when you swim, there is someone from whom you can find out some intel about what you want to know – sea temperature – today a hot 23.9, the swell, what marine life has been seen, any stingers and coming events of interest. This morning, the key question on everyone’s lips was about...

My arrival at Manly at 6:20 was met with reports of bluebottles.  A quick walk to the water’s edge and I saw and then heard the pop of bluebottles as someone ran past.  There was much discussion about where to swim.  Some people chose to swim north, others chose the harbour.  After some period of...

After a fascinating and thought provoking BnB dinner last night where Simon Phin (aka Trooper) spoke on why we take risks and how we manage them from oil rigs to the swim,  I asked swimmers today how they rated themselves as risk takers. Fingerbone and the Driver (James and Chris to others) here. Despite the...