Lots of dawn swimming
Over the past couple of months, I've been swimming at Freyberg Beach on Wednesday and Friday mornings at 7am. There is a pretty big crew of daily swimmers who brave the increasingly cold and dark mornings for these revitalizing dips (and some who go out even earlier). Distances tend to vary depending on who is there, and what the conditions are like, so occasionally it's just a quick lap of the 2nd buoy and fountain, or 1km buoy and fountain. At other times we've even managed a lighthouse lap by 8am. I've enjoyed the jollity of these swims, as the days have grown shorter, the light has grown dimmer, and the water has cooled down noticeably. The other benefit, of course, has been witnessing a lot of magical dawns, observing the different colours of the rising sun on the eastern and western hills, watching mist or rain drifting across Mt Victoria, and seeing how the water changes as the sun creeps upwards. In the last two weeks, the sea has been black as black when we se