Xmas swim…
Christmas is an annual festival commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ,[8][9] observed primarily on December 25[4][10][11] as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people around the world…….. that is the official take … for others it’s a chance to find time to let the hair down and put some excitement back into your life.
Sitting around the table eating the festive turkey with my family I received a text from Kenny with the details on the Xmas Wild swim he was planning , jobs a good un I thought as I read the details… We would meet at Stobs camp and walk into the Barnes loch for a swim early on Boxing day. For years on and off we have had some great local adventures on Boxing day…. kayaking , climbing, mountain biking , running and this year it was to be Wild Swimming. Kenny and Mick are mad on the wild swimming and try to swim once a month through the winter, even breaking the ice to get in if they have to 😀 😀
Hiking into the Barnes in gale force winds …
Mick , Kenny and I met up in what can only be considered storm force conditions. The temperature was a nice 13 degrees which for wild swimming helps a lot , even if the water was a cool 7 degrees the surrounding temperatures were toasty enough to let us heat up when we got out the water. But the WIND !! it was gusting at 60mph which was sure to make for an exciting swim … We hiked in with anticipation of big waves !!
Sure enough the surface waves were tall, hard and fast , we prepped up and got down to business! in we went with huge sets dunking us as we swam on … 1 , 2, 3 …. DUNK !! 1,2,3…… DUNK !! it was hard work …
Spray shooting off my arm in the winds ….
Made harder for me as I had opted to swim in a thicker scuba diving wetsuit for warmth , with way more buoyancy in the legs than was comfortable for waves coming from behind… they were lifting my legs along and throwing my head deep under the water … exciting 😀
Kenny beasting up the loch
We were swept along quickly and soon the water was throwing us up and into the logs at the end of the loch. Even standing in the shallows was proving impossible due to the force of the water … truthfully we were never in real danger but things could easily have gone south quickly if we weren’t careful …
All went well though and we were laughing and joking as we changed back into our clothes and headed back to the cars …. thanks again Barnes Loch you were the perfect host to this years Boxing day bash …
Wild swimmers !! 😀
