What Lurks Beneath…

 I only really started open water swimming to be able to do triathlons. In fact, if I’m honest I only really started so I could do Celtman Solo Point Five. 

But one of the huge revelations and benefits of my triathlon journey so far has been falling in love with swimming outdoors, and particularly with swimming in the sea. 

Having spent years as a full time sea kayak coach, I always thought I knew the sea; I understand tides and how the water moves, I can often predict it’s moods and how it will behave. I can look at a patch of sea, on the surface, and work out what the wind and tide are doing, and how it will feel to be on it, in a kayak.  But it turns out I only really knew it above the surface. I’ve been around water all my life: sailing dinghies while I grew up, and then bigger boats, sea kayaking, white water kayaking, surf kayaking. 


What none of this prepared me for was the underwater world, and how that would make me feel…



Photo of a page in Wild Waters by Susanne Masters and Alice Goodridge

…And as anyone who knows Celtman will understand, there is a lot of world underwater! Jellyfish are one of the things that both Celtman events are most famous for. 

When I first swam in open water, I experienced something quite alien to me: panic.  Just at coming into contact with seaweed!  What strange thing was this... and what was lurking down there?  Gradually I've learned to control it, to almost enjoy it.  And as a result I've marvelled at starfish and crabs moving around on the seabed; small shoals of fish swimming beneath me; kelp and wrack showing me what the tide is doing.  

But with 6 weeks to go, I still haven't met any big jellyfish.  A couple of weeks ago I swam in Loch Shieldaig and there were a few baby moon jellies just beginning to turn up in the loch... but I know that by race day, that will have changed.  It will best be described as Jellyfish Soup. I have to be honest: It scares me! 

So how to cope?  

Well, I'm going to swim over in Loch Shieldaig as often as I can.  And I'm going to try and do what normally works for me when taking on something scary: learn about it.  Understand it.  Marvel at it and greet it head on.  


Which is why, while writing this, I'm sitting here wearing a Jellyfish t-shirt 😁


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