Category: Bobbing

Pandemic Pondering #537

On By theoldmortuary.designIn BobbingLeave a comment

Almost overnight in mid-September the days have got short enough to affect the timings of our evening swim. With one year of year-round swimming done, we are a lot braver than this time last September. Last night was our first planned moonlight swim, it suited the tide and work commitments. Tides this week are very low at our optimum evening swimming time so there is far more contact with seaweed than we would normally choose. While we were swimming a sail training ship slipped into port under the moonlight. No cameras were available to capture the moment. (Waterproof bags have been tried, the bags work just fine but camera phones dont respond to our cold fingers) Witnessing the ship in the Sound did give a little shiver of watching history sail past.

Dar Mlodzeizy ©MarineTraffic.com

Dar Mlodzeizy, owned by the Maritime University of Gdynia is from the Polish city that is twinned with Plymouth. Good timing to arrive as a new Polish supermarket has just opened here. By coincidence we had had blueberry and curd pierogis from the new supermarket yesterday. Hannah lived in Chicago, a city with a big Polish community which introduced her to pierogis, years ago and now we have Polish family members to extend our knowledge and love of the little dumplings.

Too many dumplings would not be good before a swim however. They might fuel an over active imagination which is the only slight downside to swimming in the dark…

Pandemic Pondering #526

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Bobbing, SerendipityLeave a comment

We had a fabulous bob this morning. The sea was cool and bumpy and we had two invisiting bobbers from Oxford, both with the skills required, bobbing obviously and nattering. The more gregarious of the two guest bobbers got into conversation with a gentleman who had, he said, retired from the glamour industry. Women writhing to keep their bits covered up must have been quite a novelty for him.

Writhing occurs during the changing phase. Relatively easy during the dry change but post swim all sorts of curious movements occur, sea water and cold skin can be a sticky pairing. Even the simplest garment can become a tenaciously gripping piece of fabric, intent on clinging in the wrong place.

In other news a new cook book has arrived @theoldmortuary . Med by Claudia Rodin. The waves in the blog come from the cookbook not Plymouth Sound.

There is an update on Pandemic Pondering #524.

Only 24 hours after a few bobbers had watched the cremated remains of an unknown person belatedly drift into the bay, other bobbers visited for an evening swim. Two high and two low tides had occured and had returned the roses to the high tide point. Once again bobbers gently returned the floral tributes to the sea. Whilst we are in thoughtful mode I can share a poem about swimming in a cold sea that Angela Bobber shared on our Bobbing WhatsApp group

©Samantha Reynolds

https://instagram.com/bentlily?utm_medium=copy_link

The link above takes to you to Samantha Reynolds Instagram page.

Bobbers don’t particularly fill their swims with worries of rocks and sharks. We have smaller fears, eels and seals with caves full of plundered treasures and enchanted seaweed with the power to grab ankles. It’s all in the mind, of course, but we never allow fantasy or fact ruin good conversations or good bobbing.

Pandemic Pondering #524

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Bobbing1 Comment

We had a great Wednesday night bob last night. On leaving the water we realised we were not alone. A person, unknown to us, had had their ashes scattered on the beach earlier in the evening. Obviously the tide had not quite done what their family and friends had intended and they had been dumped, by the retreating tide, near the low water mark.

There were only four bobbers on the beach and it made us a little sad to think of someones loved one just waiting there alone for a final swim into infinity. Then the tide turned and they were off.

Delicate, swirling, white, whisps of ash and sea-water gently leaving the beach and heading for the sunset.

Pandemic Pondering #512

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Bobbing, Home Towns, Serendipity3 Comments

A day of sweet and sour. Three hours in an actual physical bank and the transaction still not completed by the time we left. Not a businesslike bone in the building! The sweetness that started the day came out of boredom as we waited and waited. I had bought some sunflowers and noticed that there were beads of nectar. I also marvelled at the Fibronacci Sequencing of the seed head. The bank was very dull!

Overwhelmed by Fibronacci excitement and curiosity and with plenty of time on my hands I decided to taste the nectar.

Tiny, twinkling beads of sweetness but oh so sticky!

If banks still had piles of money I could have covered my hands with nectar and plunged them into a pile of money and run around the corner and delivered it in person to the bank we were trying to make the transfer to.

Flights of fantasy and Fibronacci wonderment can only get you so far and there are no longer piles of money, obviously waiting for sticky fingered clients, in banks. After three hours we failed to transfer any money from one account to another. Legally or illegally, with or without nectar . Time to head off for afternoon tea in a barn.

Fully charged with sugar and tea there was only a couple of hours of downtime before an evening of questionable entertainment.

©Marianne Bobber

Four bobbers went to an outside performance of Jaws. Screened at our local Lido we were surrounded on three sides by water as we visited Amity Island for the 4th of July. We still jumped and screamed. Tomorrows bob will have an extra texture of frisson.

Pandemic Pondering #502

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Bobbing2 Comments
©Debs Bobber

Sometimes we bob at Firestone Bay in very strange weather. Three days ago this was the view over the bay just after we had finished. The swim itself was fairly unremarkable. Yesterday the skies looked entirely benign, the sea, though, was like a boiling cauldron.

Once we swam out beyond the rougher waters the water was more manageable but there could never be the pretence, as there often is that we were swimming in the med. The swim made us all have slightly dodgy balance once we got out, which makes for an interesting walk home. Aesthetically it was the perfect night for over-saturated, silky water settings on the camera.

At home we have finally remedied the significant wifi and broadband problems. A news bulletin has been watched, unbuffered, for the first time in more than 6 weeks. Not a habit that we need to return to necessarily. Just because we can doesn’t mean we should. Radio news has been kinder on the eyes.

Pandemic Pondering #494

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Bobbing, Camp Bestival, SerendipityLeave a comment

Out with a bang, festival over our van was all packed up and ready to go as the fireworks fizzed and twinkled overhead. Just a few hours sleep before we made a swift departure, before dawn, in order to get an early morning swim at Lulworth Cove.

It was lovely to be somewhere quite so beautiful as nature stretched her sleepy limbs to start the day to a soundscape of birdsong.

Pandemic Pondering #489

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Bobbing1 Comment

What lies beneath? From personal experience all sorts of bobbing paraphernalia that we somehow manage to lose during a dip. Even if a bobber notices immediately we never seem to be able to recover the missing item. We joke that there is a cave where the seal keeps all the human trinkets that he finds in the sea that is either lost or caught in the rising tide. Yesterday something caught the eye of a bobber in about 80 cms of water. Someones precious Apple Watch. No one else on the beach and no clue to the owner. We took it home and placed a message on a local lost and found site and a swimmers page.

Nothing happened all day but in the evening a man knocked on our door. He had been tracking his watch and had tried many houses before he got to us. Watch and man were reunited, seemingly very happily.

Pandemic Pondering #483

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Bobbing, Serendipity1 Comment

When does Bobbing become swimming? Probably when we stop chattering. At its least active bobbing is just about being submerged in the sea and chattering. Any bobbing session contains a variety of distances and topics covered by Bobbers. Last night 4 Bobbers bobbed away from our usual bay, just to the left of the iconic Tinside Lido, pictured above. It wasn’t a traditional Bob because the target activity was actually getting a fish and chip supper, but when we are this close to the water it would be rude not to, and there is nothing tastier than fish and chips after exercise.

The sea swimming portion alongside the Lido is in the process of being refurbished so it wasn’t most scenic location to bob but it was a lovely place to get an easy bob without the tricksy currents that are a feature of our usual location. The Fish and Chip Bob was in fact the second of the day.

Earlier,in our usual location, the nearby tidal pool was getting a wash and brush up. Making our swimming water a little murky further down the coast.

The empty pool was an almost exact colour match for the sails of a sailing school.

©Melinda Waugh

Very little wind and the tricksy currents mentioned earlier led to these novice seafarers being rescued moments later by their instructor in a motorised rib. Vivid green was also a feature of this lovely window on our walk away from the beach.

©Debs Bobber

Pandemic Pondering #475

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Bobbing, Books, Moving HouseLeave a comment

Yesterday the hardware for our domestic WiFi was installed. Today at some point we should be back in the world of Broadband.

©Debs Bobber

The last three weeks have been frustrating. When we told our network at the old house that we had a moving date the company switched us off immediately. Installation at the new house has not been a smooth operation. Coupled with a very poor 3/4g signal at the new house we’ve been out of the loop. All news and entertainment was provided by a radio. We blagged our way into a friends house to watch the Euro 21 final on TV. Curry, football and a discussion about African Wax cloth was a great experience.

Emails and WhatsApp arrived in a bunch whenever we left home. It has been a great leveller, we are as out of touch with people a mile away as we are with friends and family all over the world. Face to distant face chat outdoors has been our most reliable form of contact.

©Debs Bobber

Yesterday more than 6 book group readers met in a garden to talk about a specific book. This is going to hurt by Adam Kay. ( mixed reviews) Then we shared our good reads of the past month.

All the lovely pictures in this blog were provided by Debs, a Bobber. Bobbing has probably kept us in the loop more reliably than anything else over the last few weeks. Three days a week, at least, regardless of the weather we all meet up at Tranquility Bay and swim and natter. Last night the bay reflected its name.

©Debs Bobber

And there may have been underwater seal activity.

Is this a seals eye. ©Debs Bobber

We await activation!

Pandemic Pondering #469

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Bobbing, Serendipity1 Comment
©Debs Bobber

Screaming man rock. Not on our usual beach this evening. The tide was high and the wind was blowing in the wrong direction, so we moved to the more popular beach near the tidal pool for a safer swim.

©Debs Bobber

We were a split pack this evening with some Bobbers swimming an hour after the larger group set off. Lucky that they did because they caught sight of the seal swimming just behind the earlier group. Not realising such a special swim was occuring would have made the evening a whole lot more dull. Although, as usual, time spent with the Bobbers is far from dull even in the worst conditions.

©Debs Bobber
©Debs Bobber

Dogs were also enjoying a swim. Not ours of course because they get left at home during swimming.

The popular beach even has facilities.

Very useful for hanging Bobbers jumpers.

After a warming shower we returned for the evening dog walk just to keep them happy. Which it did, until the rain returned.