Day 167 - 12th January 2011

The healing power of the sea is an amazing thing; not just physically but mentally, in fact mentally more than anything.

Yesterday I had a 6 hour meeting as part of a due diligence for a large deal I am doing at work. The only thing I can liken it to is the interview stages in the Apprentice, but about 6 times longer, 5 times more intense and 4 times more intrusive. I came out of the meeting feeling somewhat battered, bruised and tired; although I was told that the meeting went well !! This morning I was planning on a long pool swim, but after yesterday there was no way I could endure a mental test like a long pool swim, I was simply too brain battered for that. So instead I headed to the beach for 7am; as usual it was pitch black and the rain was that annoying constant “get into your bones” rain that really soaks you through and through. Heading down to the sea with Big Bob, Little Bob, Mike, Martina and the crew we all basically stood on the shore wondering about the sanity of getting in. The waves were very strong and had come from way out on the ocean and were breaking onto the beach in all the wrong places. Big Bob and I ventured in up to our knees, but with a huge waving coming I backed away quickly and saw Bob get taken down and washed past me back onto the beach. At this point we all decided a big “I don’t think so”! However, hardened as we are and all desperate not to miss out on our morning swim we headed over to the other beach on the East side of the pier where the waves were not as big and in we all went. It was still very rough and the waves very tall, but the strength of the waves was dampened by the pier and we all felt it was safe enough. Bob and I stayed in for probably around 10 minutes before heading back to the Arch and by that time I was feeling back to my old self; the 6 hours of battering yesterday was a distant memory. The healing power of the sea on the mind in all its glory.

The temperature in the sea was 5.7 degree, the highest it’s been for ages, let’s hope it continues up. The forecast for the rest of the week is not great, so it is possible that at some point the sea might win its battle to keep us out, but we will certainly not go down without a fight!