365 Swims is a diary, a blog, a reminiscence, a challenge, a lark.
Beginning on 1 June 2012, the official start of the Australian winter 2012, 365 Swims recorded a year of swimming. Not indoors in a heated pool. Not in some fancy private lap pool. At a beach. A calm, safe beach, admittedly.
Most of the swimming was in Williamstown, a bayside suburb in Victoria, Australia. That’s in southern Australia, where the winter’s can get chilly (but not icy or snowy).
Some of the swimming, in the warmer months, was snorkelling, in Jawbone Reserve, a marine sanctuary just around the corner from the main Williamstown beach.
I’ve written several non-fiction stories about swimming (published in The Age, Eureka Street, The Big Issue) despite the fact that, frankly, I’m hopeless at swimming. (Over 30 years I’ve also written widely about family life, music and scoreboards.)
Welcome to the water.
Postscript: since completing the weekly 365 Swims diary in mid-2013, this blog has become an occasional blog, often with poems and photos by fellow Willy swimmers.