SWIMTHEISLAND SUMMARY

Swim the Island sum up.

It seemed like a long time coming, But it finally did. After a summer of  patiently watching fellow open water swimmers achieve their goals,  it was my turn to head to the water for a wallow. Whilst looking earlier this season for an end of season swim, there were a few criteria that needed to be met.

1. Warmer water. This season l have not ventured too much into cold water.
2. Nothing that will break the bank.
3. Somewhere that could tie in with a short Break. Rather than just a swim.
4. Try something that l have not done before.

Whilst looking, I came across SwimTheIsland. It seemed to meet the criteria. cheap, Nice location on the Italian coast, swim Round an Island. It also had a few hidden drawcards for me. Carina Brewer and her band Sterling EQ would be there. She is an accomplished OW swimmer from South Africa that l have met online and corresponded with occasionally. This trip l could meet her and her band, and watch them do a concert in the main Square at Spotorno .The original plan also involved some friends of Audras, who live In Italy coming down to join us for the weekend. Sadly they were unable to make it. So thanks to my amazing friends and family, Flights arranged, hotel booked, car hire booked, entrance fee paid, medical certificate sourced, very little intervention from me, we would be in Italy. In fact, the only Intervention from me nearly put a spanner in the works. More about that later.

After hectic weeks at work. Thursday saw us getting packed then try an early night for the 2 am wake up, to get to the airport for a 6am Flight. Yes, this was my intervention. The thought behind this madness is founded on a fairly sound logical approach. Get there early and we have the whole day to enjoy ourselves.  it was a great plan but, like all best laid plans, things can go wrong. Like not getting any sleep before going to the airport. We made our flight, got to Nice, collected the hire car and were set up by 9am. LETS GO EXPLORING!!

All was going good, we spent the morning  visiting some old haunts from my time spent on the French Riviera whilst working on the yachts.  At about 2 pm  the wheels started to fall off, lack of food, lack of sleep and the nervousness of driving on the wrong side of the road, whilst following a satnav that was insistent on finding all the narrowest, steepest and windiest roads in the south of France, all culminated in both loss of humour and severe case of grumpiness that had to be addressed. We still had to get to Spotorno to meet up with the organisers. This was going to involve the next obstacle  MOTORWAY DRIVING. Which I thought went pretty well whilst Audra was mastering a new dance move———so I thought! It was however a gesture, used pretty regularly with accompanying lip movements, which, apparently translated into STAY RIGHT!!! My spacial awareness whilst driving on the other side of the road is pretty rubbish — apparently. I beg to differ, the car was returned with all parts – that I know of – still in tact.

We finally arrived. Spotorno is a delightful little village and the hotel was a stones throw from the centre and some of the nicest restaurants in the area. All at ridiculously low prices. We had to check, double check then triple check the bill to be absolutely certain that they had not forgotten to charge for a bottle of wine—or two.

Swim village

 The swim was a weekend affair. Kids ad family event on the Saturday with the 1.8km, 3,5km and 6km. Plus Carinas swim and the combination swim (1.8 + 6km) on the Sunday. Saturday was clear but a bit windy but the event got off to a great start. After registering then catching up with old friends and making new ones, I introduced Audra to Open water sea swimming. Best I let her describe it…………

 Ah yes, it was a great couple of days in a wonderful location (having survived the journey in – see aforementioned comments on driving! 😉) – although it was windy on the first day, there was plenty of sunshine and the water was crystal clear – I even felt tempted to get in until I tested the temperature. 20 degrees he said. Really warm! he said. Yeah RIGHT. First just to say that while I do love to swim, I generally leave Graeme to it, because I do feel the cold easily, amongst other things. The promise of a marine protected area where I could see where I was going and maybe some fish as well proved to be my undoing! It was warming up by this time so I got changed and we waded in – SLOWLY. I have to tell you, it took a goodly portion of self control not to abandon the whole thing and dash up the beach to the warmth, but I got in eventually with a few deep breaths and a few muttered expletives! I can see how people panic when getting in –  it takes your breath away and if you don’t control your responses, I could totally see how it would be overwhelming. How anyone stays in cold water without a wetsuit for any length of time…..Well let’s just say they have my respect! It was worth it though. As soon as I put my head down, and concentrated on what was below, I forgot all about how I felt. Coarse sand gave way to shallow sea bed and we swam our way to the rocks – Graeme in a leisurely fashion, me in a more enthusiastic freestyle keen to keep warm! On the way we swam into several little shoals of fish, and with the sunlight streaming through the clear water, it was a slice of heaven. The hardest thing was diving below the surface – I had little appreciation of how bouyant salt water makes you! We attempted some gopro footage before heading back as I was starting to get cold, just in time to avoid the next large wave of swimmers. With such a large number of entrants, all credit goes to the team organising the event, who were nothing short of phenomenal. But back to Graeme now to tell you more.

The Briefing and Concert

On the Saturday, after all the kids and the family events, the plan was for the main swimmers to meet at the main square where the organisers had organised a big stage for the briefing, that was to be followed by a concert by Sterling EQ. they had flown over from SA for Carina to do the swim and the band to do a concert.

Now giving a briefing to 2000 swimmers from 24 different nationalities can take quite a while but Matteo and his team managed to get through it successfully. After this there was a Cocktail party in the restaurant on the side of the square. this was then followed by Sterling EQ.

 

They are an amazing trio of ladies, made up of a flautist (Carina), Violinist(Luca) and Cellist(Ariella), their music is, what I would describe as jazzed up Classical music. They kept us entertained for about two hours which was amazing considering Carina was due to swim 18km the following day. They also brought a touch of Africa to Italy with some of their songs.

Sunday – The Main Events

After the festivities of Saturday over, Sunday was upon us. I Awoke early and headed into town to find a machine that would throw money at me as I had emptied my wallet the previous day on various things. I then spent about an hour strolling through the narrow pedestrianised streets, that were totally deserted at that time of the day. I must admit I do love strolling through cities and towns before they burst into life, it also gives me the opportunity to get my mind focused for what lay ahead. I then went back to the hotel to get ready. Breakfast done, it was off to the beach we headed to see the start of Carinas 18km swim. My timing was a bit rubbish as I thought she was leaving at 8 am – NOT 9 am so we were an hour early.

With the day getting underway, things were getting busier and busier as the day progressed The rest of the days format was as follows

1.8km swim waves at starting at 10am

3 km swim waves starting at midday

6 km swim waves starting at 1.30pm

I was taking part in the combination race so 1.8km and 6 km. There were 112 taking part in this event and we then joined into the other events of 1,8km and 6km. This was my first time in a mass start of this size. I have been in starts of 50 – 100 people and generally water starts but this was a whole new ball game.

About 300 of us lined up on the beach behind a cord – which no-one toakes any notice of so just goes under it. Waiting for the start. Then, the horn goes and Pandemonium erupts. The highly competitive virtually fall over themselves racing down the beach into the water. with all sense of chivalry and etiquette totally disappearing from anyone in the start, the water boils with all those thrashing arms and legs. if you are unlucky enough to lose your balance whilst getting into deeper water, you better be good at holding your breath as there are about 100 people walking all over you. Here is what a typical start looks like

Typical start at SwimTheIsland

The fun does not stop there, If you manage to get away from the shore without any of the following:- bloodnose, black eyes, missing teeth, smashed goggles, you have successfully started the race. this pandemonium is short lived as you soon reach the first buoy, the pace slows and you now bunch up around the buoy. heads up breaststoke is the most common stroke at this point. clambering over wetsuit clad swimmers becomes a necessity if you want to try and keep your rhythm up. They do make good climbing frames. After the 3rb buoy, things settle down a bit, but not much.

Earlier I said I wanted to try something different and this defintely was that! As a big distance Open water swimmer, who usually sticks to marathon – point to point events, it is way out of my comfort zone. I am very comfortable starting on my own, getting into a rhythm and can keep that going for 12 hours if needs be, but, this changing of tempo virtually the entire race is very disrupting to somone who normally just puts their head down and goes, not having to worry about siting or direction as my kayaker or support team do that for me, I just follow them.

In this race, and the 6km later in the day I was never on my own, I was either being chased or doing the chasing and coming up against other swimmers and having to pass them or stop them passing me. a lot more tiresome than just put your head down and swim. I can now appreciate how Triathletes are fearful of Open water swimming. This is where they generally start out their careers and, if I had to go through that freeforall everytime I swam, I would have given it up ages ago. If this is where you try to hone your skills, the start alone can be very intimidating for those less accomplished swimmers and probably puts a lot of them off Open water swimming. Even if you start to the side like I did in the second race, you still have to round the buoys where the carnage continues.

After the 1.8km swim, back on land, the Race venue was now heaving with people and Audra and I went off for another swim togther whilst I waited for the 6km start, I also had this time to meet with some friends from other swims that I had done around the world and take on some lunch, a good portion of Pasta – which I was to regret a bit later.

As these were open water swims, and, with the swimming community haveing sadly lost a few swimmers in the recent past, it is becoming more and more common for events such as these to wear some type of towbag or float that you can use in case you need a bit of support out on the water. The company tasked with equiping all swimmers with one was RestTube. Now, having never ever used one in my time in this game, I am in total agreement of the idea behind these aids and Restube does have a phenominal idea, but,  for someone who always swims without a wetsuit, they do have their drawbacks, although minor, in big swims can prove problematic. maybe i wore mine wrong but i ended up with a cut all round my left side of my hips. I will contact them with feedback on what my experience was. With a few tweaks I am certain of the benefit of these devices

Then it was time for the 6km. Back into the breach, Start as calamtous as the last one. this time the course was longer and saw us going around the island where we threaded our way around some shallow rocks. Buried deep in these rocks, the organisers had arranged for underwater photographers/divers who were nestling on the sea floor filming all that was going on above them. At this point, I also encountered my first jelly of the race, its tentacles lashing me across my chest sending searing pain through me which numbed to a dull ache about 15 minutes later. I was also suffering the consequences of the salt water mixed with way too much pasta earlier on that was not wanting to be inside my stomach. I managed to not throw it all up but was not that comfortable. Soon we were on our second lap and the wrath of jellyfish ally was awaiting me for the next onslaught of jellyfish, at about the same point, this time across my face and shoulder. I have been stung before but nothing really prepares you for it. On this race, we went around the island into much deeper open water and then back close to the island into a marine protected area where the fish shoals were more plentiful.Not only are you racing but also totally mesmerised by what is going on below you. It is an awesome feeling swimming in crystal clear waters.

All too soon, it was over and I was rounding the last mark for a sprint finish to the end with about 6 other people sprinting the last 200m or so and then having to sprint up the beach under the RedBull arches and onto the finish. our times were recorded and our restubes collected then we were ushered down the finishing shoot to a plethora of food and drink for recovery

The rest of the afternoon was spent just chilling on the beach and catching up with other Swimmers thatI have met in my time in this game. it was so great to see them and also to start making plans with some of them for next season. The evening was spent with a few of us meeting up for dinner in Spotorno Whilst Sunday slowly slipped into history and with it the end of a great weekend.

Thank you to Matteo and his team for a great event, I can honestly say it is a great event run in typical Italian style –  No one really knows what the hell is happening but amazingly, it all happens and the whole thing comae together very well. As a short break and as a swim I can recommend this swim for an end of season wallow.

I now have time to think about what swims I would like to do next season, i have at least one in mind so far and now jsut have to choose to go international again of stay local and support some of the Local swims in Britain??

I end this blog by congratulating all those who achieved their goals, Some small and some pretty Big. I take my hat off to all of you. i would like to thank all those who put on these events. the planning that goes into them is immense and very time consuming.

Last but not least, The support teams and crews and kayakers and volunteers who do it for no glory but without which we as Swimmers would be pretty useless.