Sunday 31 March: Beanie Time

Autumn has arrived.  The humidity has given way to a strong westerly.  My phone showed 13.6 degrees as I left the house, so I made an emergency wardrobe stop to grab my beanie.  At B&B Central I was greeted by a clear sky and by Anne E, who pointed to my (rather fetching) headwear and declared: “It’s beanie time!”

 

These two early swimmers dashed up the slipway to the showers, keen to get out of the cold air:

 

No, your eyes aren’t deceiving you.  The Insular Peninsula had lived up to its name, declaring the end of daylight saving a whole week earlier than the rest of NSW:

 

There were other signs of the changing seasons:

 

Any idea who this foot belongs to?  Insert your answer in the comments.  (Clue 1: It’s a regular swimmer.)  (Clue 2: There’s a matching right foot.)

 

Clare and Belinda huddled together for warmth.

 

Ian and Lucy.  Lucy was using her rather lovely towel to layer up.

 

Edwina and Anne.

 

Emma, Robyn and Danny, all geared up for the elements.

 

The board promised warmth, so we headed into the water.

 

Simon, Ewan and Geoff.

 

Suzie and Simon, who told me they were famous for being The Parents Of Steve The Dog.  I knew who they meant straightaway.  Steve is easy to spot – he wears a red scarf, likes to lean on you and, in contrast to most other dogs at B&B Central, doesn’t have black, curly hair.  I told them I’d recently seen him heading into the gents’ toilets.  What a civilised dog. (Although, if the ladies’ version is anything to go by, I think he’d be better off outside :).)

 

Suzie showing some nice elbow action.

 

The water was flat – a big change from yesterday’s surf.  Visibility and water quality was good, despite yesterday’s rain and the threat of run-off from the fire-fighting stuff at Brookvale.  Distracted by the sunrise, I arrived at Shelly as the peleton was already heading the other way.

 

 

Thankfully, Belinda and Lisa were more than happy to hang around and show me the key learnings from their recent Advanced Blog Tarting  (Above Water and Underwater) course:

 

 

 

 

Belinda had done an additional module in butterfly:

 

 

 

Duncan turned up and proved to be a quick learner in blog tarting.

 

Then Lisa and Martin arrived to join in the fun.  By this time there really was no stopping Lisa, who invoked the Grab The Blogger’s Camera option:

 

Thankfully I managed to distract her long enough to wrestle the camera back, by pointing out the turning buoys (or booees, as our Ocean Swims friend likes to call them) that had appeared in our bay.

 

So we headed over to one and found more swimmers:

 

 

Arriving back at the Point, Belinda and Lisa confessed they’d finally run out of key learnings to show me, so I looked elsewhere for material.

 

Patrick with son Robert, who was completing his second full B&B swim.  Congratulations, Robert – fantastic stuff!!

 

 

 

Alanna and Belinda had a chat, with Janet looking on.  Meanwhile, this was happening underneath:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back on land we warmed up with sunshine and coffee, and swapped strategies for getting through winter.

 

Dave and Jo.  Jo showed off her autumnal wardrobe of trackies and uggies:

 

 

And Colby shared the love:

 

 

That’s it from me.  Have a great Sunday, everyone!

Gemma