Salty Sea Dog 23rd May '15

Following my panic from the previous post I swiftly searched for relatively accessible events to throw myself into for Tenby practice.  Check out Votwo open water swims if you fancy some swim only events.

Salty Sea Dog was perfect; the only sea swim I could make before the Long Course Weekend and the 3.8km Ironman distance, so on the back of my adrenaline rush, I clicked to book.

I had to cancel on work to attend but I've been working weekends ever since I started my first job 10 years ago and got over the guilt when Mum and I arrived at Boscombe to see this:

Look at that! I am a convert; English beaches can be a nice place to spend the day(s). We'd had a good drive down and arrived in plenty of time to have a fairly relaxed start, although with me there's hardly such thing as arriving in good time; no matter how early I arrive I somehow find enough things to keep me flustering my way to the start.

Felt good to begin though.

So let's get to the interesting bit. It was a run-in start, the horn sounded and everyone standing under the tent made a run for it (some at walk and others, myself included, a heartily confused half jog).

The sea was pretty cold (about 13 degrees) but, with time,
 you get used to these things and for once it didn't really bother me too much. The course was simple; 3 laps of a rectangle that went about 100m out to sea then followed the coast. Being an amazing summer's day, visibility was perfect and for once, my tinted and fogged goggles came in handy!

I thought I was getting into the rhythm pretty well considering the cold and was revelling in the fact that what I thought was going to be a tough event was actually rather enjoyable.

I thought wrong.

Looming just 1 or 2 feet below me in the cold English sea was THE - BIGGEST jellyfish I'd EVER seen.