The prospect of a great week's swimming over Christmas and New Year filled our little group's hearts with joy and anticipation. Unfortunately, a few days before Christmas, there was a major drain catastrophe in central Wellington, which sent a lot - and I mean a LOT, as in several swimming pools' worth - of raw sewage straight into the harbour. The whole area was closed, including Evans Bay, and a rahui was put on the harbour. No swimming, no fishing, no nothing. It was terrible, not just because we couldn't get in our lighthouse laps, but mainly because of the horrible pollution and the fact that Wellington's drainage infrastructure is crumbling.
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| Oriental Bay at the time of the rahui |
Anyway, alternatives had to be found.
Christmas Eve found a good-sized group of us ready at 6.30am to hit the water at Thorndon Pool. The challenge for the swimmers training for 40km swims was '100 x 150'. Thorndon Pool is approximately 30 metres long, so 150 metres is five laps. I didn't have to do quite so many 150s, and I also needed to get home in a timely fashion so I could go out again - to see the doctor about my weird cough (another story). In the end, I did 3.6km, rather than 15km, and hurried home. In the evening I also had to play at midnight mass in Karori: in retrospect, a 5.30am start wasn't great preparation for a day when 'work' wouldn't begin until 9.30pm, and wouldn't end until 1.15am. I needed matchsticks for my eyelids at various points during the service and possibly drifted off while playing
Silent Night.
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| Thorndon Pool, 6.20am, 24 December 2019 |
On Christmas Day, Bre, Rebecca, Alice, and I did a fun swim from Worser Bay to Seatoun Beach and back (about 1.2km in total).
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| Worser Bay, looking towards Seatoun. It looks bleak and overcast, but was a lovely warm day. |
Rebecca had long planned a swim at Days Bay followed by a housewarming at her new place for Boxing Day. The notion was to do a Days Bay - Point Howard return swim (about 6.5km?) and if anybody felt extra energetic, swimming Days Bay - Eastbourne return for another 2.5km. A large group assembled at Days Bay: some swimmers wanted a shorter dip, so did a loop from Days Bay to Eastbourne, and six of us embarked on the long trip to Point Howard.
This was my second Point Howard swim, the first one having been in January 2019. On that occasion, there was more chop, and I didn't really know the way. The outward lap felt endless, and for some reason, I just could not relax in these unknown waters. After having a sip from my water bottle and a jelly snake at Point Howard my general mood lifted, and I loved the return leg (with a tailwind!) although apparently, my route was unorthodox: the rest of the group thought I was heading to Seatoun!
For the Boxing Day swim, I was more confident, and nourished by porridge I set out for Pt. Howard with tremendous confidence, keeping my mouth tightly shut when we passed the area with warning signs about another sewage leak somewhere around Lowry Bay. It didn't seem to take very long to reach Pt. Howard - it surprised me how soon the wharf appeared - and after two jelly snakes, I was ready for the return trip. I thought I'd found a better sighting target, thanks to Tom's good advice (he said to look for a little house with a shiny roof up on the hill). Nevertheless, despite keeping the shiny roof in my sights, once again it appeared to my companions that I wanted to visit the Cook Strait. Suddenly I realised that the Days Bay wharf was in sight, but I was a long way out to sea and would have to make a very sharp left hand turn to get into the beach. I could see Rebecca and Jeremy closer to the coastline but a bit behind, and Tom was approaching the beach. A strange current/tide also made it hard to swing a left, and it took several lifetimes to reach the beach. Meanwhile, Jeremy and Rebecca, hugging the shore more, took a far better line, and we arrived at the beach at much the same time.
Again, I felt that I had swum better on the return leg: smoother, more consistent, and with more of a feeling of evenness and ease. In any case, it was a great morning in the water.
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Tom going out to meet Murray.
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