This week is set to see the sea temperature drop almost 5 degrees . Yesterday and today it will be around 15/16 degrees, by the end of the week it could have dropped to 10/11. The sea as seen above was choppy and difficult to get into last night but,once in, it really was a good evening swim. The bags we carry with us are getting heavier though. Flasks of hot drinks, layers of clothes and wetsuits are making a return. Strangely most of us are enjoying the return to ‘proper’ cold water swimming. The late Spring and early summer were lovely as the sea temperatures started to rise and we could swim as long as we liked early in the morning or late into the evening without too much concern for anything beyond, perhaps, the tide.
Swimming in cold water has an extra frisson to it that we (the Bobbers) have missed in the warmer months. I write this now from the comfort of a warm house, by the end of the week proper cold water swimming will be a reality. We will have all the frisson we could wish for.
Yesterday evening was the first time for a few weeks that I was able to walk along the coastal path nearest to the swimming beach that the ‘bobbers’ prefer to use. The beaches and the coastal path beyond the Artillery Tower have been closed for essential maintenance. Although the path is now open, the steps and slopes that allow us to get into the water at high tide are being refurbished.
We often joke that our ‘free’ hobby is anything but free as we buy various bits of equipment to make winter swimming easier and safer to achieve. But for our local council maintaining the concrete against twice daily tides and winter storms must be a huge budgetary responsibility.
Looking at the amount of work that has been done I’m pretty grateful that my only responsibility before winter is to get a wetsuit. But for now October is still being kind to us.
Yesterday was a strange one, Autumn has certainly arrived. The sea temperature and air temperature were equal, both at 14 degrees. The evening bob felt completely fine but we may have stayed in the water too long as we felt the effects of afterdrop for the first time in about 5 months. Afterdrop is the effect of body temperature continuing to drop after leaving the water. Hot drinks, brisk changing and lots of layers help to minimise the effects but we’ve got used to leisurely chats after swimming and not being too fussed about layers or bringing hot drinks. Time to take sensible precautions again. The word Christmas was mentioned!
A Christmas day morning bob is looking likely for this year.
On our walk to the beach we passed this glorious Virginia Creeper and Hop combination on a wall. A sure sign Autumn has arrived and is settling in for a few months.
Another crochet painting emerged from my new painting space in the garage. The paintings are stacking up in the studio ready to have their fine details and finishing done in the warmth of the indoor studio. Such luxury!
You might think that a day spent pondering the interior decoration of two rooms would be a day without incident.
The new house is a few minutes walk from a street filled with repair garages, workshops and Trade Counters for various essential items to the marine and building trades.
Armed with a fair idea of what we needed we went to one of the Trade shops for decorators needs. There was an instant, underlying hum of manliness as we walked in. There were few other customers in the store, all men. Their fleeces told the stories of their masculinity. ‘Babcock’ only needs a small wrinkle of fabric before it looks like Bob cock. Some men wore t-shirts bearing the name Princess Yachts. The word Princess stretched across impossibly toned trapezius, deltoid and pectoral muscles. A sure warning that calling the owner ‘Princess’ might be ill advised.
We were left to our own devices and without too much trouble made our decisions and gathered up our purchases. We waited some time at the counter. Tea was being made for all the customers, not quite all of course. Tea was made for the fleece and t-shirt wearing men! We did not register on anyone’s tea radar. Tea arrived in bright mugs bearing the names of English football clubs. The talk was of standing at football matches and the exact opposite of standing, clearing slime off slipways.
The conversations ranged around and over me. Then one of the men asked my opinion on a product I was buying.
Did I think it was any good, and could he use it to paint body parts. What was I planning to use it for?
Horror flooded my mind, the idea of painting any body part with noxious paint seemed like madness. I suggested that it would be a bad idea. He looked at me as if I was a little crazy, a look that only intensified when I told him I was painting crochet. His mind fixed firmly on the industrial and mine on the creative.
We returned home, made our own tea and started using our various purchases. Then a text message came through for a last minute ‘ bob’ in the sea. A birthday bob for a visiting bobber. Even this simple activity took a turn!
So far so good, a birthday bob achieved.
How to make a birthday bob memorable?
For the moment access to our beach is blocked by essential works. The only access is via the grounds of a rest home and convent. Unknown to us there is a curfew on using this route. Our birthday bob was ended by us being seen off the premises. Being thrown out of a convent is a pretty unusual way to mark a birthday.
This birthday photo was taken with the photographer using a normal word to make us all smile.This photo was taken with the photographer using a word that would make a nun blush.
Autumn Equinox was marked by some foraging in friends gardens, with permission, of course. We made an autumn wreath for the yard. This time next year it would be lovely to think we could be collecting our own figs from the new tree, but that seems unlikely. The fabulous weather of this week is scuppering all plans of getting on with jobs in the new house and yard. Apart from foraging in gardens there was just too much lovely sun to be enjoyed yesterday to get many jobs ticked off the to-do list.
Autumn really is a lovely time but the slow slide into short days and long dark nights is a definite mood drooper. Our evening swims now require torches in our tow floats and easy clothes to change into. Hot drinks in flasks can’t be to far behind.
Last night we welcomed back Kim to the bobbing group. She perforated an ear drum while perfecting an elegant swallow dive from the platform, anchored out in Plymouth Sound, six weeks ago. Those of us that just bobbed and flopped managed not to injure ourselves but did not bring quite the same style to the event. Style and sea swimming are starting to be reflected in local art exhibitions, we bought this print a few weeks ago.
The second day of this weekend with lots of colour and a little bit of anxiety. Coupled with some charity fund raising, this time a swim around Burgh Island just off the South Devon coast. Under normal circumstances Jenna would not be abseiling without full family support or Hannah swimming around an island without the same. Pandemic rescheduling has concentrated so much into the 4 weekends of September that everyone is spread a little too thinly to cover all commitments.
An early start at Bigbury gave us two seasons in the space of half an hour, summer glory then autumnal gloom. Thankfully the summer glory won through for the actual swim.
Hugo and his mum heading to the check in
The land bound support team tucked into scones Devon style.
Whilst the sea swimmers confidently circumnavigated the island and returned to us, very happy with their achievement.
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, 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…
Bobbing in 16 degrees water temp nicely finished off Sunday. A day that had started well with freshly baked bread, still warm from the bakery oven.
Bread that tasted as good as it looked. In between these two activities we threw in domestic chores and dog walks as well as a local produce market. All of these things done in sunshine and warmth. Having been proper grumpy on Saturday with traffic congestions the car had a day off and everything was achieved on foot. On one of the walks home I found a lost toy by the churchyard.
Vanlife Part 3 at Bantham. There were many reasons for visiting Bantham. The prime one was to visit the location of a future sea swim around Burgh Island. Two bobbers swimming, one bobber bobbing, Someone has to look after the dogs and take the photographs…
The practice swim over it was time to visit the village shop and cafe for breakfast. Beautiful Bantham made sure that we will visit again by turning on the photographic charm on our walk up the hill.
And just like that Summer is officially done. The last blog of August!
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.
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.
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