My rookie period: I’m studying to swim within the ocean, braving the waves and marine life | Swimming

I’ve wished to be an ocean swimmer ever since I moved to Sydney. The concept of getting out previous the waves and braving the weather excited me. I might inform anybody who would pay attention: “Once I live closer to the beach, I’m going to be out there. Just you wait.”

I’ve lived strolling distance to the seashore for greater than a 12 months now. During this time, I’ve learn lots about ocean swimming: how swimmers overcame challenges or life-altering moments. I even listened to a podcast on the way to face your fears within the ocean.

But the place I excelled in analysis, I wasn’t as proficient within the water.

I began off robust, swimming laps in ocean swimming pools at Malabar and Coogee with a pal who was visiting for the summer time. I discovered a secondhand wetsuit for the colder months (which I used to be actually happy about), and acquired new goggles so I may see the fish and seaweed higher.

Claire Keenan practices her freestyle in the waves at Clovelly.

But then, in what I can solely describe as extraordinarily unhealthy luck, I used to be stung within the face by a jellyfish (it’s nonetheless a sensitive topic). The traumatic encounter occurred throughout an impromptu, after-work dip at Clovelly. It was so painful, I nonetheless get goosebumps now. I additionally seemed ridiculous – some extent of reference here.

When I nonetheless couldn’t deliver myself to totally submerge my head underwater, I made a decision to return to the protection of an ocean pool. It was at Wylie’s baths one sunny Sunday afternoon, after I watched children and employees gather practically 50 bluebottles with elongated kitchen tongs, that I actually began to query this complete concept.

I spent my childhood in numerous our bodies of water. Every college vacation concerned swimming within the Murrumbidgee River, riddled with brown snakes, or within the Hume weir earlier than the drought sucked it dry. During college, it was up and down the native swimming pool. As I acquired older, my dad and mom and their associates, with carloads of children, would drive two full days to the Gold Coast. Up north, the place the water seemed just like the sky and the waves like clouds, I fell in love with the ocean.

But I’ve since reminded myself, as you need to too, that we don’t have to succeed at each interest we decide up.

At the time of writing, my ocean swims most likely quantity to twenty laps of a pool. I by no means did use that secondhand wetsuit as a result of it felt too claustrophobic. I used to be known as “brave” by locals after one extraordinarily chilly Coogee swim the place I needed to flip again from Wedding Cake Island, someplace I’d all the time dreamed of reaching. What a rookie, they have to’ve thought.

What I lack in distance, I’ve made up for in establishing an gratifying routine: the guilt-free possibility of swimming solely after I really feel prefer it. I’m not recreation sufficient to hitch a swim membership, so I’ve made the solo swimmers and the fish my neighborhood. I’ve swam and squealed alongside monumental blue gropers, tiny stingrays, silver and striped fish, and even a Port Jackson shark (extra of a muffled shriek for that one).

As sea water fills my ears and I’m misplaced for breath, it’s the busyness and great thing about the underworld that retains me distracted and swimming. While we’re all shedding our minds above, every part feels fairly easy underwater.

When the tide is just too excessive and crashing, I don’t trouble taking my goggles, and if it’s further low and clear, I’ll snorkel as a substitute. I really choose snorkelling anyway.