By: Blonde Two

The sea was on fire on Thursday morning. Look at the picture carefully, my feet (which for once are floating in a reasonably organised manner) are not on fire but that is because I have done the right thing and put them into very cold water for exactly ten minutes.

As it turned out, 10 minutes was as long as any part of my body could stand to be in the sea. Despite being on fire, the water clocked in at 7.4 degrees and the air had a nice round zero-degree count. Checking the water temperature before my swim was interesting because I needed to hold the probe in the water (this was before it was on fire), I first tried to do it fully winter-dressed, this didn’t work because of the waves so I took off my trainers, socks and trousers and stood ankle-deep in a swimming costume, two merino vests and an enormous puffy down jacket. I suspect I raised a few eyebrows.

If, by some strange quirk of fate, my feet had ignited, I wouldn’t have been able to feel the flames because even in wetsuit shoes they were far too numb to feel anything. I wasn’t worried about the sea burning around me because it clearly needed warming up a bit.

I have to admit that despite the water and the numbness and the tingling being just wonderful, getting out and dressed was pretty unpleasant. This minor fact didn’t stop me swimming again the next day.