A faff of swimmers

Today pre and post swim faffing reached new and quite ridiculous depths.  David and Tamara were down from London, to do the new Pub to Pub Aquathon with Kari and me.  This was supposed to be a swim from the Pilchard pub on Burgh Island to the Sloop at Bantham, across the bay and up the river on the incoming tide, with a short run to the pub at the end.  Cue, before the event, all manner of mind-boggling logistical preparations, involving three cars, clothing, money, and trying to work out where all these three should be and at what time. In the end it all went off brilliantly, er, apart from waiting around for one and a half hours at the end trying to find the person with the key to the car which had all our clothes in....still, in the meantime Kari managed to sweet talk the pub into giving us Pimms on credit.  The swim itself was slightly constrained by Hurricane Bertha, in that the strong winds meant we couldn't start the swim at the Pilchard, and had to set off at the river mouth.  The unexpected bonus was we got a hair-raising ferry ride to the start in the lifeguards' RIB, zooming out over the surf.  Then, once the race started, we were swept up the river in the 'whoosh' of the incoming tide....we sped past the pink boathouse at Jenkins Quay and on up to the thatched harbour master's office where we got out to claps and cheers from onlookers, before puffing up the hill to the finish.  What a great day, and thanks to the organisers Ruth and Patrick.

Doing the Bantham swoosh

Angie was down at her caravan at Bantham, and invited us down for an afternoon dip.  We walked through the clouds of young cow parsley and down to the pink thatched boathouse, where the river was a slim green twist.  It was nearly low tide, but the water was still moving down towards the sea at a fairly brisk old pace.  There were the usual cries of protest as we plunged in (the sea is taking a long time to warm up this year, to be fair) and it proved pretty impossible to swim against the current up river.  We waded and dragged ourselves for a while, and it was wonderful to have visibility again after the murky winter seas; we saw mussels, cockles, and lots of swaying bladderwrack below.  Then it was time to turn and be taken by the current, in what is generally known as the "Bantham swoosh".  You don't realise how fast you're going until you put your face in and watch the underwater landscape racing along underneath you.  We were carried along until we suddenly reached an eddy, where we span around for a while, like children on a merry go round.