wild swim - fingal bay

8 MAY 2023:

Today I rode my little motorbike from home, early and alone,  to the coast.  I wasted some time looking for some swimming gear and in the end decided to just go swim. 

There was a stiff NW, so i elected to go to the sheltered FB, see photo. The bay looked majestic with late autumn's soft light glistening off the clear aqua-coloured waters. I wriggled with anticipation of the refreshing seawater on my skin and the promise of a good physical workout.  I dressed quickly and thankfully my spring suit zipper decided to play fair. the wetsuit was perhaps not essential,  just a layer of comfort and insurance against those fish that attack men's balls. Alatm bells rang as i entered the water and saw many mullet in the warm shallows by the southern headland. my immediate concern was about "sharks", they like schools of normally fast moving fish in great numbers. I was a little relieved to discover that it was not a full on school, as away from the shore it thinned of quickly. 

Immersing myself was pure bliss and as every stroke was made my fear symptoms eased.  the unfolding swim was amazing; the water quality was exceptionally high and there were fish everywhere (mullet,  bream, flathead and small others schooling near the surface). My shark fear steered my route just beyond the small breakers. I naively thought that i could stand and fight or flee if a dark shape appeared! (fat chance). 

I managed about 500m out and back. the surf further round the bay has a clear run from the sea and was  larger and breaking further out. So i elected to turn back rather than navigate deeper waters. After turning around I enjoyed every stroke even more.  Using a snorkel i'd been able to breath heavily to counter my fear response and lack of swimming fitness. After i turned the noises of rapid breathing eased and  near the end of the swim i went to breast stroke. this a allowed me to soak up the scenery above sea level and  I hoped the warm down would let the acid leave my muscles before oli hit the beach. after my  last s swim  i had staggered uneasily as my legs hit solid ground.  It worked, i did wobble a little,  but i felt reassured that the wobbling was due to something muscular and  not a heart blockage or something equally bad.  

afterwards,  sitting on cloud number nine a local surfer regaled me with yarns of 3 metre sharks slashing through the surf after the mullet just the previous day.  but my elated state fended off any attempts to draw d it back to earth when he  showed me a photo of a 2 metre shark that was captured in fishermen's nets.  not allow attack from a story telling  He showed me a photo of a 2m shark that was damaged by the fishermen's nets. Eek! i noted that it's bight was a little under 200mm across,  enough to remove a part of arm or a butt cheek.

after the shock settled i felt  both lucky and thrilled. lucky I'd dodged a bullet,  but happy that it been alert to the risk and chosen to safely push on and have such a glories swim.  I mean shark fear is half the excitement of wild swimming isn't it?

hours later  i am still thrilled and confident that i had assessed possible risk and taken steps to build in safety. The reality is that not all sharks will attack people and those that do are momentarily off target.  

what I'm left with several hours later is a sense of having experienced one of life's most simple and pure exposures to nature that i've had in years. a slow burning ecstasy oozes through me.