By: Blonde Two
“I’m not sure all these people understand.”
So goes one of the lyrics of the R.E.M. song ‘Night Swimming’ (not to all tastes) and I am fairly sure that most of the night’s other beach visitors did not understand as I stripped down to my swimming costume, clambered inelegantly down the steps and disappeared into the grey, lumpy sea.
It was eerie, and disconcerting and my heavy breathing was not just due to the endeavour to stay parallel to the beach. Not confident enough to put my face into the opaque substance of the swell and tired of head-up swimming, I rolled onto my back. No relief there, no stars, no moon, nothing but another dull, inky sea-in-the-sky. No beginning and no end, maybe that was the reason I had come.
It wasn’t refreshing in the way that my cold morning swims or eccentric splashes with friends have been. Rather it was renewing, I emerged that little bit braver, that touch more accomplished. A step towards something maybe, who knows what.
Would I go night swimming again? Well yes of course, but next time it won’t be the same. It never is, the tide, the wind, the swell, the light, the company, all fresh each time.
I went to bed with a smile (and Mr B2 of course!)
Warning: swimming is much safer if you do it in company… and in daylight.
I should imagine that swimming in complete darkness might be exceedingly difficult as regards navigation – especially in still water when you could not hear the waves breaking.
It has been suggested previously, that I should take up “wild swimming”, with places on Dartmoor being well-suited to it. My response is that I have spent hundreds of pounds buying equipment to keep me warm and dry on the moor, and with that desire in mind I see no sense or attraction whatsoever in throwing myself in a freezing cold river. It takes all sorts I guess. That is all I shall say on this deeply suspicious activity… 8)
I have to say that the thought of wild camping after a Dartmoor swim fills me with all kinds of shivery thoughts… horses for courses I guess, or fish for oceans!