Early morning: Sunday 19 February 2012

The river is as warm as the day.  Lovely to linger and chat.

Winner of 50m junior handicap is awarded the Arthur Larter trophy for 2012

Swimming champion with non-swimming dog, Coco.

Early morning cheer

Swimmers in blue at 8am

The Incident of the Dog in the Swimming Race

(Note: No camera was used in the making of this blog post.)

Picture it. 

A sunny Sunday at the river, and the swimming club is well into the race program.

The race is 50 metres, and the competitors are six of our fastest teenage swimmers. 

The swimmers have just hit the water when Milo, a labrador kelpie cross, happens to be passing by on the shore.  He recognises Hannah, one of the competitors.  She is his very dear friend. 

In fact, Milo had once belonged to Hannah, but circumstances changed and he had moved on to another family who lived nearby.  

He sees Hannah out there in the middle of the river, out of her depth and splashing arms and legs.  Does she need rescuing?

Being a noble breed of dog, he gives no thought to his own personal safety.  On all fours, he leaps into the river and swims out to the lane ropes.  Hannah is in the outside lane, and Milo makes it his business to join her, and let her know that the bond between them is as strong as ever - and does she need rescueing?

Once inside the lane, he proves to be an excellent swimmer and would have won the race if he had swum in a straight line and been given an official handicap. 

His rescue style is to swim head-first into Hannah, mouth open, tongue dangling and no doubt wagging his tail – although you could not see that under the water.  Having bumped aside Hannah mid-lane, he then decides that all the other swimmers need his attention.  He dodges and weaves through the lane ropes and surprises  oncoming swimmers with a hearty grin at close range and face level.

He dog-paddles (yep!) in the finest tradition of dogginess, staying head-high in water way out of his depth. 

The race ends in disarray, and Milo swims from swimmer to swimmer to ensure that he does not have to rescue them. 

He leaves after the race, upon reading the sign “No swimming of dogs’. 


Afterword (1):  

Dogs have been ignoring the 'No swimming of dogs' ever since the sign was erected.  

Betty and Val remember another dog - many years ago - that was a keen swimmer.  The dog was small, but his race of choice was big - the length (356 yards) of the baths.  

He would start the race with his owner and clock a respectable time for his size and weight, beating many of his human counterparts to the finish. 



Afterword (2):

And speaking of non-human swimmers:  Betty remembers the incident of the fish.  

The river abounds with mullet.  They often leap from the water, for reasons the scientists do not know and nor do we.  

As the story goes, a mullet must have swum in the lanes, mid-race, and in a leap to escape, it slammed into the hand of a passing overarm swimmer.  It is hard to know who was more startled: the fish caught by hand, or the unintended fisherman who ended up with a live fish in his grip.

Sunday 5 February, 2012: early morning swim meet

Catching the early morning sun

Ditto

Giving the new flippers a dry run

Morning sun strikes gold against the shaded faces

Swimmers standing in front of a huge Tom Roberts painting

Bazza tells a good story

One scary dude

Washing the barbecue

Smiles that light up the day

Sandy Beach in 1926

Sandy Beach in 1926

Sandy Beach in summer 2011

Sandy Beach always drew a crowd.  It was near the railway station, and it was our equivalent of a day out at the beach. 

There was no pontoon in 1926, but I think the very same trees have made it through to 2011. 

As you can see, the 1926 shore is not pedestrian friendly, unless you can clamber over boulders.

Those boulders were replaced with sandstone retaining walls which, I am told, were constructed during the Depression (1930s), to create work for unemployed men.

So - world events - in this case the Wall Street crash on the other side of the world - led, in a circular way, to the construction of our own small street by the river.

Clothes for the fashion conscious swimmer

Our model sets a high fashion standard

Fashion is foremost in the minds of our swimmers, and this photo only goes to prove it.

Our model is wearing the club hat which she has carefully co-ordinated with her swimmers and umbrellas. 

The wind chill factor on this day was in the single figures so, to keep her swimmer's muscles warm and ready for action, she wears a raincoat in a colour which daringly mismatches her lime green sarong.

A wet and windy day at Sandy Beach (22jan2012)

We wear raincoats and sweaters over wet swimmers...

There's this joke swimmers like to make about wet weather.  They say: 'I'm not swimming in the rain, I might get wet.'

Well, we do swim in the rain.  If the tide turns up, so do we.

Date: Sunday 22 January 2012
Tide:  1.9m.
Time: 8am start for a long race program:
the chook race (if you can swim to a nominated time, you win a dead bird); 25m kids race,
100m freestyle championship,
50m handicap,
100m freestyle handicap,
1km or Around the Baths (about 700m).

Season: summer
Temperature: reaching 27 degrees celsius
Wind chill factor: 5 degrees celsuius
Time between races in wet cossie: 20 minutes.
The challenge: to maintain base body temperature.

....or a fleecy over a shirt...

...while others take shelter from the wind...

...but a dry towel can keep you warm...

...and then there's the wetsuit.

Group shot 2010/11 by Mathew Wylie

Isn't this one beautiful: morning light and legs.

NOTE:  If you click on the pic, it will enlarge.