Well stunning morning down at the swim. The water is getting colder but the enthusiasm for a dip stays strong!   Well, the rumours are true… the A-team did leave Manly yesterday evening… suited and booted…   …to receive our Order of A-team at the Australia Club. Bottom Right: Sterling Scroll Back Halfway Brain, Julie...

When you see Panda you know Derek is back from his great family reunion.     These two seen sneaking off for a cosy brekkie ??? maybe.   Amazing Blogger & all-round lovely person Lisa just loves her friends & swims.   Nurse’s Nurse’s everywhere, no matter what ails you we have somebody who can fix...

Before any of us had heard about The B&B or started this bizarre ritual… did we ever ever imagine that we would be getting up in the dark, in the middle of Winter to try and jump as high as we could on the sand before throwing ourselves in cold water and swimming 1 and...

The path to swimming with the lovely sunrise, always gives me a lift.   At 7am, Manly is waking up. A golden sun kissed  winters day. Still chilly with air temp about 13 degrees. A little warmer 17.4 degrees in the water.     Our little cove. Quiet & peaceful.     Water temp has...

Ecstasy has it’s origins in the Greek ekstasis, meaning ‘standing outside oneself’.  Philosopher Plotinus saw ecstasy as a connection back to oneness, the highest expression of human potential, identifying with that which is the best in the universe and key to attaining ‘the perfect life’. For Thoreau ecstasy was experienced as ‘all walls and barriers dissipate,...

What a morning! A total of 220 swimmers, including 8 newbies, braved the wind chill and were rewarded with what has to be the best start to a Sunday. Well, to any day really..   Solstice Swim Report: The morning kicked off at 6:20 with leg #2 of the Drinks Express solstice swim. Near perfect conditions for a nude swim...

This past week has been exceptionally beautiful – especially when you consider that this mid winter.  When the weather blesses you with days like this,  you can’t help but be reminded of your good fortune. It was also a bit of a Celebrity Saturday with the surprise arrival of Jules and Michael. Chatting with Jules after the...

I was listening this morning to an interview with the translator who translated the phenomenal Ferrante books from Italian into English and she talked about the challenges of getting across the sense of the original narrative as well as just translating the words. It made me think of all of the people that are the first to...

You may have been forgiven for hearing the alarm this morning, listening to the patter of rain on the rooftop and then rolling over and going back to sleep. But 91 of us hearty regulars – or nutcases as my friends calls us – ventured down to the Manly Surf Lifesaving Club for our morning...

It was a grey, wet, dark, gloomy morning. But it was still easy to get out of bed (who am I kidding?) and come down to the beach this morning because I knew I would feel better for it. I just needed that period of quiet contemplation or meditation or just thinking about nothing. Being...