My brother Matt was down, so we decided to go fishing at Hope's Nose - an exposed finger of land sticking out to sea in Torquay. I was excited, not just because I love fishing with him, because he's so expert, but also because I've always longed to swim there but have never done so. We'd done a recce the day before, when the sea had been crystal clear on the sheltered side of the point, but overnight there had been rain and gales and so the water had clouded. No matter, it was gloriously sunny and we set to and were soon catching whiting and pollack, as well as a dogfish. There were about 20 chaps fishing - no women at all - and Matthew wasn't too keen on the idea of me going swimming as he viewed it as potentially the latest incident in a lifetime of me embarrassing him. However I was determined to go in and set off to a discreet spot away from the fishermen, taking my 13 year old son along for protection. It's a particularly intriguing spot for swimming as there is a spectacular rocky pavement with pink splodges and white streaks, with many inlets and little natural swimming pools which fill up at high tide. I found some convenient natural steps to walk down into the sea, from where I launched off and swam around some of the barnacle-pocked intricacies of the shoreline. Matthew needn't have worried; none of the fishermen took a blind bit of notice, being far more interested in what they were doing than in some strange woman taking a dip.
My brother Matt was down, so we decided to go fishing at Hope's Nose - an exposed finger of land sticking out to sea in Torquay. I was excited, not just because I love fishing with him, because he's so expert, but also because I've always longed to swim there but have never done so. We'd done a recce the day before, when the sea had been crystal clear on the sheltered side of the point, but overnight there had been rain and gales and so the water had clouded. No matter, it was gloriously sunny and we set to and were soon catching whiting and pollack, as well as a dogfish. There were about 20 chaps fishing - no women at all - and Matthew wasn't too keen on the idea of me going swimming as he viewed it as potentially the latest incident in a lifetime of me embarrassing him. However I was determined to go in and set off to a discreet spot away from the fishermen, taking my 13 year old son along for protection. It's a particularly intriguing spot for swimming as there is a spectacular rocky pavement with pink splodges and white streaks, with many inlets and little natural swimming pools which fill up at high tide. I found some convenient natural steps to walk down into the sea, from where I launched off and swam around some of the barnacle-pocked intricacies of the shoreline. Matthew needn't have worried; none of the fishermen took a blind bit of notice, being far more interested in what they were doing than in some strange woman taking a dip. 
2 comments:
Hope's Nose is a cool swimming spot and it comes with a very bold seal in summer. He hangs around until someone catches a fish and as they reel in he'll come up and take it off the line, well the edible bit anyway!
The fishermen are fairly immune to swimmers, they've had to put up with me!??!
Yes the seal put in an appearance, thankfully AFTER my swim,I'm none too keen on swimming with him!
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