Shock News: North Sea Cold In January

So I wanted to start the New Year off as I mean to continue. High tide was at 09:30, and the sea pretty calm, so it looked like I’d get to swim across the harbour & back to celebrate the start of 2008.

Om the down side, the moon’s about half full at the moment, so ‘high’ tide wasn’t that high . . . but enough for a swim. Naturally, being as this is the middle of winter, wearing the wetsuit was pretty much compulsory for this!

Parents-In-Law and Eldest Nephew came down to the beach to watch (/call the RNLI if required), and Father In Law took some photos. Unfortunately we don’t have a cable to fit his snazzy camera, so the pictures will be posted at a later date.
Now I have to say that I’ve not swum in the sea since August, and I was anticipating that it’d be somewhat colder than I was used to. But the skin searing extremity of the cold quite literally took my breath away. In fact it was so cold that my hands and feet were unbelievably painful.

But I manfully soldiered on . . . for a while. But it was really far colder than I was used to, so I decided remarkably quickly that discretion really is the better part of valour, and turned back, having just got over half way across. Maybe I chickened out too early, and with a few more minutes the wetsuit would have started to warm up. However, being cold is one thing, but borderline hypothermia just isn’t much fun.

OK, so I didn’t make it all the way across the harbour and back. But I did swim in the North Sea, which not so many miles away becomes the Arctic Ocean. The clue to its temperature is kinda in the name.

Workout:

• Type: Swim
• Date: 01/01/2008
• Time: 03:03:19
• Total Time: 00:05:00.00
• Distance: 200 m
• Average Pace: 2:30.13/100m

Filed under: Family, Swim, Triathlon, Whitley Bay