Adventure Scilly

I can't believe it has been three years since I updated my Blog.  I guess it's not surprising, since I now work for 8 different swim clubs/schools and run 3 self employment businesses.  Since my little accident (see 2014 post), my personal swimming has taken a down turn.  I focused on passing my experience onto others which gives me enormous pleasure, but does leave me a little frustrated that I don't seem to have any time for myself anymore.

So, I promised myself a little prezzie for my 60th birthday.  I would take myself on a Swimming Adventure.

In passing conversation with my long time swim buddy, Colin Corby, he happened to mention that he had just returned from the Scilly Isles where he and his lovely wife Annette had attended the Scilly Adventure Swim holiday.  As soon as he said he thought he had just visited the Caribbean, I was sold.  All I needed now was a companion.

Karen Eyles, AKA Water Slave 2011 was just the person.  After a failed solo channel swim attempt, she had stayed away from the open water for far too long.  Time to get her back in the game.   Luckily for me she agreed and so it was booked.   June 4 - June 8 with the company Adventure Scilly.

We booked ourselves on the overnight sleeper from Paddington to Penzance.  Challenge No. 1.   As a claustrophobia sufferer, how do I get to walk along the narrow corridor to reach our cabin?  Answer, sideways, deep breath and close your eyes.  Yes it was that narrow.  Challenge No. 2.  How on earth do two people get undressed ready for bed.  Answer, one leaves the cabin whilst the other gets undressed, gets into bed, thus making room for 2nd person to enter.   God - I never knew so much could be squeezed into such a small area.  

Needless to say, I never slept a wink all night.  If it wasn't the train, it was the porter.  If it wasn't the porter, it was next door.   Or a whistle blowing, or...…. Karens snoring!   At least one of us slept well.

On arrival at Penzance, it's a quick dash to the harbour to catch the ferry over to St Marys.   The ferry is a 2 1/2 hours journey and on arrival at St Marys, we then had to catch the taxi boat over to St Martyns, which is where we were to be based for the next few days.  Jeez, I could have reached the real Caribbean by now !

I hadn't done my homework and so embarrassed myself when I asked the chap on the taxi boat where we get the taxi to our hotel.   No taxi's on this island luv was his reply.  No roads !   St Martyns is one of only 5 habited islands and has a population of just 150.    We needn't have worried as there was someone at the jetty from the hotel to meet us and off we headed to our hotel.  It was definitely worth the 12 hour journey to get there. The people are the friendliest, most helpful people I have ever met and Colin was right.  I was in the British Caribbean.

View from our bedroom window.

On arrival we were met by our guides, Dewi & Nick.  Nick runs a B&B on St Marys and his wife runs Adventure Yoga.  And Dewi coaches our silver commonwealth triathlete champion, Jessica Learmonth and both had superb knowledge of the waters surrounding the Scillys so we were in great hands.  There were 9 people booked into the swim holiday with 8 being swimmers and 1, Jane, Peters wife, along for the ride.   She was soon to become our saviour, preparing hot drinks and snacks after each swim.   Nick and Dewi started the introductions, then we all chipped in with a little bit about ourselves.  I kept the bit about being 60 back but later learnt that Peter was also on his 60th birthday break!  We were so lucky to have such a great bunch of people to spend the week with.  We all gelled beautifully, we all supported one another, stuck together and hopefully made Dewi and Nicks life a  little easier by not swimming off in different directions.

Day 1

An introduction swim along the coast in front of the hotel including video analysis and stroke tuition.  This is when I first realised the reality of how cold the Atlantic is.   My infamous Brain Freeze took its usual five minutes to settle down, by which time, the team had disappeared half way up the coast.  How the hell was I going to get through the week in this temperature.  12-13 degrees we were told which was probably right, and probably bath water to all my cold water comrades back home.  This was followed by a classroom session to quickly view all todays swimming and followed by some very sound advice from Dewi on how the frontcrawl should be swum!

Day 2

My more Glamorous look

Swim from St Martyns to the island of Tresco.  Quite a long swim and this was when we really sought out our speeds and abilities.  Conveniently we slotted into two groups quite nicely with Peter being our super fast swimmer and leading the way.  Myself, Karen (a different Karen), Kirsten and Andy tagged along behind Peter and were thankful that Peter paused every now and then to allow us to catch up.    Karen (my friend) teamed up with Amy, Andy's partner and were not far behind.   A picnic lunch followed by a hike across the island and time to explore before the second dip into the icy water as we swum across to the island of Bryher.   It was amazing that Dewi and Nick had requested that all beaches be evacuated for our landing each day!    Yes, every beach really was totally empty.  True bliss.

Day 3

The biggest swim of all but not after a half hour hike across St Martyns to a different beach.  Dewi and Nick were there waiting for us and once again we pulled on our wetsuits, entered the icy waters and off we headed over to St Marys.  The ferry was in action at the time of our crossing and I'm convinced everyone on the ferry was looking at us thinking we were nutters.   After this swim, we hitched a ride on the boats back over to Bryher where we put those cold wet, wetsuits back on to swim to one of the unhabited islands, Samson.   A beautiful picnic once again, glorious sunshine, great company both in and out of the water.  Yes, this was when I got my first glance of a seal.  I grabbed Karens arm, not really thinking about how that would help me.  Nervous apprehension saw me sprint to the finish line on this occasion.

Day 4 - THE SEALS !

A lovely swim along the coast of St Martins where myself and Karen went Skins.  We swum approximately 800m along the coast and with it being such a beautiful sunny day, we both decided to remove our wetsuits for the swim back.   The water had been crystal clear all week and it was now or never.  Remove the suit or regret it.   I felt fine.   Yes, it was freezing, but with the warm sun on my back, I managed it.  

On this day, we hitched a boat ride over to Easter Island where we had a beautiful picnic.  Then, headed off round to swim with the seals.  Hundred of them all came to greet us.   Yes I was nervous but it was brilliant.   To have so many of them just a few feet away from us was incredible.  Watching them swim underwater with you was amazing and Amy even got a cuddle from a flipper!  And one seal even got a little too friendly with her black booties, trying to nibble them from her.  Her foot was inside his mouth and just play biting like a playful puppy.   I will never forget this day.  Being an apprehensive open water swimmer, always being wary of the dangers than can lurk out there, I found myself totally relaxed and enjoyed every moment of the experience.

This truly was the most amazing holiday.   I would recommend it to all my Swimzy friends.   The scenery is out of this world.  The swims are beautiful.   The Guides Nick and Dewi are First Class and stayed with us from breakfast to evening meals.   A memorable holiday which I would definitely do again.

And now, sadly, within 5 hours of arriving back home, I was back at work at the crack of dawn followed by the evening Essex Mini League gala, 11pm to bed, then back up at crack of dawn again for another teaching session.   Where did that holiday go.