Reflections on Project Copper. I’ve swam about 54,000 metres to cover the 25 kilometre coast, which were swum as a series of out and back swims, so every metre of coast was swam twice. With the experience I’ve gained of the various currents on this stretch of coast, I now know there are longer swims…
Ballyvooney Cove is on the smaller coast road between Stradbally and Bunmahon and is not well known. It has heavy shingle and is difficult to walk on above mid-tide, like some of the others along this coast like Annestown. It’s only a couple of hundred metres across and the same to the flanking rocks. To the south-west…
This is Project Copper Coast swim number nine. Yes, I know I’ve haven’t put numbers on them until this but I only foresaw one swim after this to finish. I first visited Ballydowane as a small child with my family, and never knew the name nor location, until I visited it over 25 years later,…
In 2010 while Channel training I did the majority of my Waterford training at Clonea, trying to eek out some fractional comfort from the average extra 0.25 degree Celsius water temperatures, after spending the previous few years mainly swimming at the Guillamene, where I returned again last winter and this spring and early summer. But…
I thought I’d already posted this swim, as in the swim report for Bunmahon to Ballydowane, I alluded to previously discussed knowledge of Bunmahon from years visiting it and as the surf spot that I know best, even better than Kilmurrin. I must have spent hundreds of hours surfing here. As a swimming location it…
I had some nervousness about this swim for a few reasons. Having previously discussed my familiarity with Bunmahon, I’ve written about the dangers on the beach. These don’t worry me because it’s a very localised danger, for inexperienced or non-swimmers, that covers an area of a few dozen metres squared. But I recalled a couple…
Back at Annestown within a couple of days, when I doubt I’d been here for a year. I’ve described Annestown from a surfing point of view in the Annestown to Boatstrand post. When I arrived, it was a bit different. There was some actual groundswell (not very large), the sky was blue and the day…
So why not come at Boatstrand from the opposite direction? I asked myself. And then I answered. Why, no reason. No reason at all. of course, since yesterday’s post, you now know why. Annestown is another part of this coast I know better from surfing. I’ve never even really seen a reason to swim here.…
Anyone following the new swim spot reports recently or looking very closely at the tag cloud (and why would you, since you actually have a life) may have seen a tag called Project Copper on the site for the past couple of weeks. It recently struck me, in one of those why-haven’t-I-done-this-before moments: Why not…
Having explored Kilmurrin to Boatstrand, an obvious step was to swim underneath the 50 metre cliffs to the west of the cove, toward Bunmahon. The conditions were typically similar. Force Two onshore. Tide was lower though, only half in the cove. I left via the usual route on the left of the cove aiming to…
The first time I ever air-dropped a wave and stuck it was in Kilmurrin. That’s surfer lingo. Something I’ve rarely used and sparingly. I refused to ever say gnarly, or stoked, for example. In Ireland, I always thought, we had sufficient command of expressive language and a predilection and culture for description such that surfer speak terms…
I had a plan for a swim last week, but I was let down again by my kayaking friend. What to do, what to do? Friday’s forecast was pretty good. Very light onshores. I wanted something new. So I decided it was the apposite day. I had a pretty decent breakfast and was ready to…
After years of swimming T-Bay, I’ve gotten to know it reasonably well. A few years back I drew up a map of the pertinent features, from a swimming point of view. That map is a bit out of date, I’ve made a few discoveries since then, but I just keep it in my head now.…
LoneSwimmer 