The reef. Should I say it reposes, lurks, or waits there? Whichever, it changes by weather, by season, by my direction, by my desire. It does all these things. Regardless, it posts sentinel beneath the headland of Great Newtown Head, breaking southerly seas from the eroding lower Old Red Sandstone terraces that encompass the entrance.…
I need you to believe me on these two things. To the best of my knowledge, the only three people who have really seen the Yellow Sea, are Tramore inshore fisherman, skipper of the Little Tern John Stubbs, local (international record-holding) kayaker Mick O’Meara …and myself. Three of us three who haunt the Copper Coast,…
I feel. Shamanistic. I feel. I feel atavistic and pantheistic. I feel touched by what they could have, maybe did call the divine wind. Though only my fingers and eyes move here, a wind, no, a storm is blowing through me. I feel wracked, my soul exposed and blown to shreds. Around my head a cloud…
When I left you at the end of the last post, I’d also left the LE Orla, setting out for the water under Doneraile Head and park where I could see the local RNLI and Tramore Inshore RIBs on weekly training exercises. A couple of weeks before the bicentennial, I’d been at another memorial, the annual…
The weather on Saturday the second of July was horrible. The air was cool, a mere 14 degrees. It had been raining for three weeks, and the early promise of summer, a sly murmur spoken over a mere four days at the beginning of June had long vanished and the water temperature had dropped back…
Amongst the omissions or subjects I have yet to tackle, one of the more obvious has been relatively little coverage of environmental issues. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, they say. I’ve tackled many open water swimming subjects here, sometimes because I didn’t know enough to be daunted, or because I thought that while my knowledge…
“On behalf of the President and people of Ireland, I’d like to welcome you to our shore” said the Newtown and Guillamenes Open Water Swimming Club President to me. The gentleman speaking was the eighty-five year old who has been swimming at the cove for over seven decades and the man who probably invented the original Ice…
Part I. July saw a trip to the North Channel to crew for Finbarr Hedderman’s successful North Channel solo, and where I was to return later in the summer for another solo crewing task (which ended differently, but more importantly safely). After the North Channel I spent the rest of July on the Copper Coast enjoying…
I didn’t think 2013 was a great year for swimming new locations for me, though early in the year I’d hoped that would be different. Unsurprising, I suppose, as the longer I’ve been swimming, the further I would need to travel to swim new locations. I’ve covered all the Copper Coast, much of the rest…
In 2010 during English Channel training Coach Eilís imposed certain strictures and deadlines. One of these was that on the first week of May we would swap from primarily pool training to primarily sea training. May. It’s a word and name laden with the promise of summer. In Ireland and the UK may is…
This post is now part the My Swimming Life, 2012 series. I must start with the Guillamenes and Tramore Bay and Kilfarassey of course, my main swimming locations. My usual range in Tramore Bay is between Newtown Head (under the pillars) to the beach, along the west side of the bay, most of the range…
There is no swimming in this post. I really wanted to get swim just for the fun of it, but there was no safe exit point except at the pier and I knew I’d cause mass panic there, probably resulting in Rescue 117 being called out again. Does this mean I am growing up? Surely…
The weather in Ireland has been broken for the past five days. It didn’t operate as normal. It’s the end of March and instead of the usual dull cold grey, it’s been warm, bright and sunny. So like quite a few others I changed to a few days of sea swimming and even did a…
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.…
You know, in all the swimming I did last year, I never really wrote about ordinary swims that much. Every swim was part of a structure, a plan, the wet road toward Dover and the Strait. I tended to think more about big swims and tough swims, or swims which marked some milestone. I often…
Problem: Out of ideas of what to write about next. Solution: Go for a swim. From the Guillamenes down to the pier and out the headland, ( the “Guillamenes Double” as I call it, though I only went halfway out to the headland yesterday, due to Half-Claw). Water was 9.c C under the ladder, maybe…
A few better pictures today. Click to embiggen for detail. First is old Tramore town from the beach, out to the Metalman. That church on the horizon is a useful landmark for aiming toward Doneraile Head when swimming in from outside. Next is Brownstown Head on the east side of the bay also obviously from…
Given that Google Earth doesn’t cover Tramore Bay in higher resolution, here are some pics from the OSI. First is the whole bay, some of the currents can be seen. Next is the stretch of coast on thw west side where I swim, from the Guillamenes in the centre down to the headland with the…
LoneSwimmer 