The Bold & The Beautiful

After more abortive attempts than I care to remember, today was the day I finally made it to the Bold & The Beautiful.

Basically, the B&B is a community run daily swim from Manly to Shelly and back, every day, 365 days a year, rain or shine.

Regularly with over 100 swimmers, it's essentially a Manly institution with badges, social events and the like.

Tim and Roly had already chalked up a number of swims with them, but I had always been hesitant up until today when I decided to take the plunge.

I cycled down there, ditching the bike near MSLSC and after a quick sign up, the issue of the standard pink headgear and a photo, Tim and I waded in.

The way it all works is that they all swim to the point, wait for everyone then swim to Shelly, wait again before swimming all the way back to Manly.

So after waiting at the point for a few minutes we were off. Much like the start to most triathlons, the first few metres were a flurry of legs and arms, although I was quickly able to get into a rhythm and soon found open water.

Strangely enough, Tim was swimming immediately to my right before he headed further right and towards the shore and I decided to make a bee line for the beach instead.

The swim over to Shelly was fairly uneventful and I actually felt comfortable the whole way, finishing next to Tim for some reason.

After a couple of minutes break at Shelly and a happy birthday for someone we were soon off on the return journey. I quickly lost contact with most swimmers as my sighting was pretty pants on the way back, even having to stop a couple of times and readjust my lines, eventually rounding the point and swimming back to shore to find Tim waiting for me.

All in all I have no idea why I have been so hesitant to do this. It is pretty much ideal open water practice, gets me in my wet suit and used to swimming in a crowd. What more do I need out of my swimming. Hey, I even enjoyed it!

I will definitely be back...next time I may even watch where I am going!