Goggles at Dawn

Looking towards Rakiura with not far to go. It is now two weeks since I was lucky enough to enjoy a beautiful swim across Te Ara-a-Kiwa/Foveaux Strait to Rakiura/Stewart Island on Saturday 1 April 2023. For many reasons, this was a lucky swim, characterized by a series of beautiful coincidences and experiences that I wasn’t sure how to do justice to. With every swim they complete, our local swimmers write ever more perceptive and vivid blogs, so there is some pressure to match their originality and eloquence. Just this week I've read Adriana's evocative account of her Taup ō swim, and Gr á inne’s thoughtful response , written from the perspective of a support person during the swim (as well as her stories of swims here and abroad). Then there’s also Rebecca’s story of a record-breaking swim in Lake Wānaka , Mike’s day in Taupō , and John’s long-awaited crossing between our north and south islands. Their candid reflections make it harder and harder to find a perspective and t...

This is the second installment of  Gráinne's visit to Ireland in July and August of 2022. Having just completed a crossing of the North Channel, one of the hardest of all marathon swims, she sought further adventure ... ***** As I plunged into the black Atlantic Ocean at the farthest tip of Southwest Ireland under the intimidating Fastnet lighthouse at 5am on the 5 th August 2022 I was enveloped with a wonder.  I was astonished at the extreme sense of serenity I felt despite being, literally, a little drop in the 41 million square miles of the second-largest ocean in the world. Whilst I had planned to be in Ireland in August 2022 I hadn’t expected to be here, so how had this happened? A Double Triple Crown? A week and a half after completing the arduous North Channel , my mind started to ponder the 21km Fastnet Rock Swim .  I started to think ‘could I squeeze this swim in before returning to New Zealand and complete a “Double Triple Crown” in one year?’ The New Zealand ...

Reflections on swimming at different levels of alert have probably run their course for a while, and also I'm tired of writing about them. So, I thought I'd post about something current, what I am doing now. As I'm relentlessly pursuing the 'Million Metres in 2020' goal, I wanted to get back into swimming 20km weeks as soon as possible, plus a bit more to make up the shortfall caused by five weeks of non-swimming lockdown. Late April and May were the build-up, and I started hitting 20km weeks from the start of June.  Progress has been as follows: Week beginning 27 April: 13.05km (all in the sea) Week beginning 4 May: 13.6km (all in the sea) Week beginning 11 May: 15.3km (all in the sea) Week beginning 18 May: 18.85km (sea and pool) Week beginning 25 May: 17.18km (sea and pool) Week beginning 1 June: 20.1km (sea and pool) Week beginning 8 June: 20.93km (sea and pool) Week beginning 15 June: 22.43km (sea and pool) Week beginning 22 June: 22.75km (sea and pool) Week be...

View of Plimmerton and environs from the plane Two weeks ago exactly (give or take 12 hours) I walked through a chilly southerly to morning squad at WRAC, and on my way home stopped off at Countdown to pick up the remaining supplies for my Chopper Swim trip: apples, dried apples, peanut butter, penne pasta, Snackballs, dinosaurs, two tiny tins of tuna, and a packet of cherry tomatoes. After lugging this repast home, and pottering around for a while, preparing for work the next day, I took a bus into Lambton Quay for my pre-event massage. The numbers of cases of Covid-19 in New Zealand were increasing; a few days earlier all international travellers coming into the country were officially required to go into self-isolation for two weeks, and cruise liners had been banned, as had large gatherings of people. The most recent message from the Chopper Swim organisers was that we would go ahead: our group size was relatively small, and the risks were also small. The only fly in the oi...