Week 27 – Saturday 1 December 2012 to Friday 7 December 2012
The Willy Dolphins, and other year-round swimmers, nearly always swim from the life-saving club side of the Williamstown beach. There are good reasons for this: you’re close to car-parking, close to the water, and the rising sun shines on you as you dry and dress.
But there is another side to the Williamstown beach. You could call it the Sirens side, home of the Sirens restaurant and Rotunda cafe. Or the fishing club side. Or the picnic pavilion side. (The photo above is taken from the picnic pavilion, with just a glimpse of Sirens on the right and, way over on the left-hand corner, the life-saving club.)
Another reason for nearly always swimming from the life-saving side of the beach is that there are rocks over on the other side: okay for snorkelling at high tide but no good for wading and swimming, especially at low tide.
I’ve had a few dips the past week from the other side: partly for a bit of variety, partly because lately – with the onset of summer – it’s been getting pretty crowded over by the life-saving club. As well as the regulars, there are now all sorts of johnny-come-latelys, especially triathlon groups zipping up each other’s wetsuits and then swinging their arms round and round, and boot-campers lugging not just their bodies and souls but tyres and ropes and poles. They are all welcome, of course. I have the privilege of being able to come down here each and every day.
Swimming target: 365 successive dips
So far: 189 successive dips
Still to come: 176 successive dips.
