Why start here, in November?  In truth, chance. I planned to start in October but never got around to posting that article, though it is written. And with November drawing on to a close, I wanted to post something. Also, I like the idea that November is a time of change, one of the many delineations in the northern Atlantic ocean swimmer’s year. As humans we are creatures of time, by which I mean there is an agreed social construct to it, a common language of meaning we’ve agreed to allow us to clearly communicate. Almost none of us operate entirely free from a calendar of some kind, and being at the least aware of the simple seasonal terms and delineations leads us to believe that these are absolutes, that the idea of November is something fixed and part of the world, rather than a label of convenience on which we’ve all agreed. We step into the water though, and the idea of a fixed month with a title and characteristics becomes less tenable as something we can point to when faced with waves, cold and the changing but seemed eternal nature of the sea. But nonetheless, the fact that we can slip away from these constraints in the water, doesn’t mean that we can entirely free ourselves of them, and they retain their necessity when trying to communicate  experience.

Also, I am tickled now by the idea that I have written the first and the last in the series, with no idea what is come in the middle. So in some ways that is like a long swim, where we know how it begins, and endlessly visualise and imagine the end, and commit the important middle bit to our experience and training and willpower. Because I guess to attempt to find and show you the patterns I’ve seen, I have to trust myself now, that I have the experience and the knowledge. I just hope I have the memory, or the skill or even the hubris to ask you to accompany me on this journey over the next year.

I will forget things. I will revise and revisit and update. I will change. I will not speak for you, or any other Atlantic open water swimmer, even though my articles will often contain observations that seem absolute. There may be twelve articles,  there may be less, for the human months map not to the seasons of the wild Atlantic, but we ascribe these months to the sea and to our swimming like bookmarks or placeholders in our human need to put the ocean into a human-scale context. Our descriptions and our experiences are fleeting, foam on the surface that may or may be visible, to others, sometimes even to ourselves.

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Limestone surface on the Burren Coast at Doolin Point with the Cliffs of Moher in the distance

November to many swimmers is a time of ending. It is past the end of the organised open water season.  Air and water temperatures drop, air more than water. The evenings draw in, the northern latitude winter days a month before the solstice meaning drive to and from work in the dark. Frost spreads, even more rain falls.

The coast of the county of Clare in the west of Ireland is dominated by the unique landscape known as the Burren. This National Park, covering about 250 square kilometres, is often (wholly incorrectly) called Moon-like, due to the ubiquitous exposed grey limestone terraces and pavement which comprise its hills and valleys.  It has no fields, just occasional dry stone walls, whose origin is tied to Ireland’s greatest tragedy. Habitation, the small villages and solitary houses, is sparse, and what exist are there from before modern planning regulations and environmental concerns.

The limestone terraces and pavements (karst) seem at initial glance to be utterly barren (that word is not the source of the name Burren, which means Great Rock). The raised pavements (grikes) are crisscrossed by fissures and crevices (clints, the second of these two beautiful and highly specialised words every Irish schoolchild used once to learn), which are inhabited by flora from Arctic to Alpine and Mediterranean ecologies, all co-existing.