Pacific Jules

23/02/2012 - Turtle Magic

2012-02-23T09:33:29+11:00

106 Bold & Beautiful swimmers.

Another stunning swim in paradise with lots of activity including 15 new swimmers, welcome all. Cae, Gaetan and Miles enjoyed an early lap which we can share via Gaetan's great photos below, love the one of Gaetan swimming with the sunrise behind :-)

The juvenile school of squid joined in just off Shelly Beach, look out for them they are really very cute.

Plus a beautiful turtle swam under us just off the point on the way back !! I tried to get a photo but he out swam me :-(

Our yogis started with an oohmmm or was it an uhmmm... ;-)

Now for a face you might recognise below with Bruce Baird... Tim Johnston, the finalist from Australian Idol joined us for a swim this morning !! Tim will be swimming with us again tomorrow too so come down and keep him company :-)

6 swimmers also enjoyed a bonus double lap after the regular swim.

It's the last chance to qualify for your 2012 summer badge this Saturday !! Continue on from the regular 7am swim to join in and qualify for your 6 or 10km badge. Please join in it should be a fabulous swim and a perfect way to end summer. Yes can you believe it, summer is nearly over :-( Please bring food and drink to share, to the start of the swim for the en-route teddy bears picnic, thank you.

Happy birthday to Luitz Koopman and Richard Lees today !! :-)

Water Temperature 24.1
Air Temperature 21.5
Sunrise 6.37am
Sunset 7.40pm
High Tide: 9.30am
Low Tide: 3.54pm

22/02/2012 - Fiddles, Cats and Flats...

2012-02-22T10:55:46+11:00

Over 97 Bold & Beautiful swimmers.

What a glorious morning for a swim.

Check out some of our beautiful girls, very proud of themselves for waiting 'at the point'... ;-)

So much marine life out to play with us too !! Photos below are of two gorgeous Eastern Fiddler Rays, two Estuarine Catfish and a Flathead.

Fiona, Gaetan, James and Michel also enjoyed a lovely early bonus lap.

Check out these fab photos of Brendan's brother John at the Carnival in Rio !! It looks amazing :-)

Nick TB is being brave and participating in The World's Greatest Shave to raise funds for the Leukaemia Foundation. If you would like to sponsor Nick please click here

Water Temperature 20.5
Air Temperature 20.5
Sunrise 6.36am
Sunset 7.41pm
High Tide: 9.30am
Low Tide: 3.54pm

21/02/2012 - A Bright Start

2012-02-21T10:19:41+11:00

43 Bold & Beautiful swimmers.

There's nothing better than a lovely swim with great company to brighten up a dreary day :-)

I've heard of role reversal, but this morning it seems we had equipment reversal... whilst Lucy was back in her wetsuit, purely in the name of protection of course ;-) Vicki had her first ever swim with out a wetsuit !! and Reetha and Izzy stopped mid swim to swop flippers - cute ;-)

Happy birthday to Anna Alvsdotter and Sophie Coombes today !!

Brendan had his last swim with us before his Rottnest Channel Solo Swim on Saturday. Safe travels and good luck Ben and Brendan !!!!

Water Temperature 21.7
Air Temperature 20.0
Sunrise 6.35am
Sunset 7.42pm
High Tide: 8.50am
Low Tide: 3.20pm

20/02/2012 - Calm after the Storm

2012-02-20T10:19:02+11:00

59 Bold & Beautiful swimmers.

Miles was very happy to be out at the point being nibbled for a second time this morning after his bonus early lap with Sam, and all before breakfast too... ;-)

It was the calm after the storm this morning with beautiful water and reasonably good visibility. Soooo many fish out and about as well :-)

Thanks Anna for doing such a great job with the swims and on the blog over the weekend, although I'm not sure we'll let you loose again... ;-) Sandy you can't let the truth get in the way of a good story... 2500 people... well we are currently sitting at 2493 swimmers and I guess they could all choose to swim one day... yikes.

Thanks to Dave for overtaking Anna on the Pacific Challenge, whoops... I mean for taking the 6km swim on Saturday with an amazing number of swimmers, fantastic !!

There's only one more Saturday left to qualify for your summer badge, yep, this coming Saturday when you can choose between the 6 or 10km swim, as both will continue on from the regular swim at 7. What a great way to finish summer, come on you know you want too :-)

A massive well done to our very talented 'Wall of Thought' as every item they entered into the Kangaroo Valley Show won a prize !!! To quote Maureen, all their items were inspired by B&B and made with love :-) Maureen & Nicolee both won first prize with their pie carrier and jewellery and Annette & Maureen both won second prize for their B&B swimming dolls and apron. Brilliant !!

Well done to everyone who participated in the Jervis Bay Triathlons this weekend, there were about 40 B&B swimmers that we saw taking part amongst all the events and Greg, Michael and I had a fabulous time watching you all, very inspirational, although it was exhausting I have to say ;-)

Whilst we were down there we enjoyed some stunning swimming off Hyams Beach where we saw so many Rays; Bull Rays, Eagle Rays, Fiddler Rays, Numbfish, Shovel Nosed Sharks and Stingarees to name just a few. Shame we didn't have the camera it would have made a magnificent video.

Simon discovered a new variety of the animal kingdom on Manly Beach over the weekend...

Welcome back to Gaetan, looking forward to hearing of all your holiday adventures including your fame on Japanese TV :-)

Water Temperature 23.7
Air Temperature 20.5
Sunrise 6.34am
Sunset 7.44pm
High Tide: 8.07am
Low Tide: 2.43pm

19/02/2012 – Another day in Cabbage Tree Bay (= Paradise, yes)

2012-02-19T11:58:25+11:00

Woo-hoo, 138 swimmers and 20 of those brand new :)

A warm welcome to all our new swimmers. You’ll find Bold & Beautiful is a very friendly and inclusive family where everyone is accepted just the way we are. Julie Isbill (our “fearless leader” and birthmother of our daily informal swimming activity) is away today, but will be back on deck tomorrow morning. For your second swim with us, whenever that is, do say hi to Julie if you haven't met her before, she’s an inspiration and a half.

One of our 'sometimes swimmer' joined us again today. Here's Richard (above on the left) in his pink cap with fellow B&B'ers. Richard is featured in this weekend's Manly Daily, talking up unicycling as a means of commuting to work: http://manly-daily.whereilive.com.au/news/story/a-wheely-fast-ride-to-work/. Richard is also someone nice to be married to, and I'm talking from experience here :)

Congratulations to Julia Baird today. Happy birthday Julia, we all hope your day is full of fun and happiness.

Can you believe it - every day new people find their way to our group, and today as many as 20. Here's a picture of some friendly gentlemen.

Our group is very diverse with lots of different nationalities. This couple below is Swedish - they're Daniel and Sophia, and if ever you get a chance to talk to them you'll feel uplifted because they're just nice people. Tell them "fina fisken". They'll get it.

John Bond (below) took a group of five for a double lap of our bay. Might as well make the most of the fab conditions, or “Swim the bay while the sun shines” as the Manly idiom goes. Unless you want to make hay, then that's also fine.

Now a reminder of the altruistic efforts of our amphibious B&B swimmers. We have two teams (that we know of) who are participating in this years Coastrek in March, which is a 50km coastal endurance walk to raise money for the sight restoring work of The Fred Hollows Foundation!

If you would like to sponsor either or both teams please do so below:

Jenny Knapman’s team: http://my.artezpacific.com/TeamPage.aspx?teamID=48198&langPref=en%20CA&Referrer=direct%2fnone

Elaine Kindred’s team: http://my.artezpacific.com/TeamPage.aspx?teamID=48228&langPref=en%20CA&Referrer=direct%2fnone

It's been said before that Bold & Beautiful actually is a coffee group with a swimming addiction, and ain't that so? Sorry about the salt stains on the camera lens, I think you get the gist from these two photos even though I didn't take any pics of the numerous coffee aficionados at Manly Wine.

Thanks for letting me play B&B blogger for the weekend. See you in the ocean :)

Anna

18/02/2012 - Manly calendar swimmers

2012-02-18T12:48:37+11:00

Goooood mooorning Paradiiiise!

It’s the shrinking violet standing in as blogger again. Please bear with unorthodox comments and unprofessional pics. Mind you, I think it’s safely uncontroversial to state that this morning’s swim was one of those unforgettable ones, and for all the right reasons; sunny skies, warm and flat water with mostly great visibility, plenty of marvellous marine life and exuberant swimmers.

185 wonderful swimmers today, and of those, 38 (!) people continued on to Freshie for their 6km swim.

Oh the humiliation. For a brief moment I’ve been taking great delight at creeping up to seventh spot on the Pacific Challenge. Alas, both Dave Adams and Chris Kiely decided to extend their 7am swim with the 6km Saturday adventure, meaning they’ve both passed me on my way to virtual Port Macquarie. Here’s a photo of the two long distance speedsters looking smug. There will be NO
photo of me crying though.

Nan and Big Rick swam into Shelly with a huge branch, thus protecting any swimmers from collision injuries. In the second pic above, Rick is showing that despite his kitten-like appearance, he really is a macho man after all.

A few of our other swimmers posed nicely for a calendar shot.

The marine life was out to play with us again; wobbegongs, dusky whalers, estuary catfish, stingers to name but a few. Lat of pics below is of Cynthia.

Two of our in-house artists, Fiona and Libby, discussing today's shark scene.

While Julie’s away, Robin and I have decided quite disobediently to blow her trumpet by adding a copy of this article in the XX featuring their former resident, now turned Australian superstar. Thank you Joan, Julie’s mum, for sending this.

17/02/2012 - Summer Fun

2012-02-17T10:05:04+11:00

Over 106 Bold & Beautiful swimmers !

6 swimmers enjoyed a gorgeous early swim up to Queensie at 6am this morning making it back in time to join us in the regular Shelly swim :-)

A superb swim it was too. Alex saw two lovely Eagle Rays just he was swimming back into the beach from the early swim, then Anna saw three of them gliding along at the end of the Shelly swim.

Lots of people saw the beautiful Shovel Nosed Shark just off the point, around the same place he was spotted yesterday and Fiona saw her most peaceful, graceful Dusky yet. Sadly for us they didn't swim past the camera so there's no photos :-(

There's lots happening and about to happen at the moment...

Good luck to the 'Wall of Thought' (Maureen, Annette and Nicolee) this weekend with their entries in the Kangaroo Valley Show, bring us home some medals ;-)

Good luck to everyone in the Jervis Bay Triathlons this weekend, more medals please ;-)

It's only one week tomorrow until The Rottnest Channel Swim !! Good luck to Ben and Brendan who are both swimming solo !! No stopping till you touch that sand at Thomson Bay :-) Do we have other swimmers participating in it ??

Thanks to Mary Stollery; Cathie, Patrick, Michael and I went to the opening night of Every Single Saturday last night at Glenn St Theatre and it was absolutely fantastic !! Seriously, well worth a visit and you wont be disappointed. It's a musical, but if you're not a musical lover don't be deterred as even Michael, the chief musical objector, thoroughly enjoyed it. It's only showing until 26th Feb so don't miss it. Mention the magic word 'Beautiful' when you book and receive B&B's fabulous discount, making it only $49 a ticket which includes a drink !!

The 2012 Alcatraz Swim is on 8th September and registrations have just opened, so if you're keen, check it out here. One of our swimmers, Scott Graeber, aka Scooter, lives in the US, has swum the swim and is very happy to discuss and help with logistics for any of our swimmers who are interested in giving it a go. So if that's you please let me know and I will put you in touch :-)

Happy birthday to Gaetan Guilhon today !! :-)

Water Temperature 23.1
Air Temperature 20.5
Sunrise 6.32am
Sunset 7.47pm
High Tide: 5.16am
Low Tide: 12.10pm

16/02/2012 - Summer's Arrived

2012-02-16T09:55:29+11:00

93 Bold & Beautiful swimmers.

Summer's finally arrived ! Joining the tropical fish and the warm, clear water we actually have blue skies and sunshine now too :-)

Neil and Jonny were very happy to be back in the water with us after their travels, we're very happy to have them back too :-)

It was very exciting to see everyone congregated 'at the point' this morning too... ;-)

Welcome to our 10 new swimmers, what a fabulous swim to start you off.

Cae and Miles enjoyed a gorgeous early swim and 9 swimmers enjoyed a bonus double lap into Shelly after the regular swim. It's hard to resist in these beautiful conditions. It's 'as warm az' !!!

Anna, Attracta and Lori collected this debris throughout their swim and saved a crab who was stuck amongst the plastic. Fantastic :-)

It seems that Izzy new exactly what to give Peter this morning to brighten his day ;-)

Check out ABC's show "Wild Ones: Shark Harbour" which you can watch here on I View

It's quite reassuring I think... In the last couple of minutes of the documentary there's a shot of the B&B swimmers... !! It was the 10 of us who swam around North Head on 29th Jan 2011... I recall that boat too, but thankfully didn't know what was along side it at the time !

Here is a screen shot of it, courtesy of James Partington.

If anyone is considering participating in the Lake Argyle swim in May apparently they have received a record amount of interest this year, so please confirm your place by tomorrow or your spot maybe reallocated.

Water Temperature 24.1
Air Temperature 20.5
Sunrise 6.31am
Sunset 7.48pm
Low Tide: 10.56am
High Tide: 4.50pm

15/02/2012 - Underwater Treasures

2012-02-15T09:47:28+11:00

82 Bold & Beautiful swimmers.

"Lov-er-ly" and absolutely "bootiful" conditions this morning !! A superb swim leaving Gerd with wonderful memories to take home with him. Safe travels Gerd and we look forward to staying in touch via your upcoming on tour photos :-)

There were so many wonderful underwater treasures out and about, including two 3-barred porcupine fish, dusky whalers, flathead and all our regular friends... The only thing missing were the dolphins and they are around as they cruised past just after our post swim frivolities yesterday :-)

The Nature Conservation Council of NSW and Wilderness Society Newcastle are running a workshop at the Manly Environment Centre tonight and would like to get along as many people as possible, to deliver a submission writing workshop and to talk about the federal government’s proposed marine reserve network.

It's free to attend but bookings are necessary, so please RSVP to either mec@manly.nsw.org.au or 9976 2842 by midday today if you are keen and able to attend, thank you.

Balmoral have their annual swim coming up on 25th March.

This year they are introducing a Teams Challenge, with an exciting fight to the finish to see who is the Champion Fundraising Team. It's open to any company, school, club, community or other group. So if anyone from B&B is keen to take up the challenge and put a team together, here’s what you need to do:

Create A Team On EveryDayHero
Recruit your team members
Start fundraising
Pledge to raise at least $1,000

Who Benefits: The Balmoral Swim raises money for the Children's Cancer Institute Australia, a team of dedicated researchers dedicated to eliminating the suffering and incidence of childhood cancer.
How to Win: The team with the highest fundraising total at midnight on 24 March 2012 wins the Alexander Patrick Hall Shield, an honour well worth fighting for.

Water Temperature 23.5
Air Temperature 20.5
Sunrise 6.30am
Sunset 7.49pm
Low Tide: 9.34am
High Tide: 3.27pm

14/02/2012 - Sharing The Love

2012-02-14T10:31:31+11:00

Over 71 Bold & Beautiful swimmers swam for a heart this morning.

Oh what a beautiful morning it was too, well for our little window at 7am it was. A rainbow brightened the sky, the water was stunningly clear and warm and the fish were a plenty.

Lots of valentine love around too... ;-)

Plus a couple of beautiful big flatheads albeit that were a bit camera shy.

4 swimmers made the most of the fabulous water and enjoyed a double lap in these bath-like, aquarium-style conditions.

A dramatic sky and the inshore trough were both on full form this morning too...

Some exciting news amongst our swimmers:

Congratulations to Dom Spurrett and his family as they had a beautiful baby girl earlier in the week, making 3 lovely daughters :-)
Anna Alvsdotter became an Australian resident yesterday !! There's no shaking her now, she's here to stay and she's after that number one spot on the Pacific Challenge, so watch out :-) Congratulations Anna !!

Now not so happy, in fact very sad....

It's Gerd's last swim tomorrow as he is moving back to Germany :-( Gerd's flight is at 10am tomorrow but he's having that one final swim with us so please come down and wish Gerd farewell and safe travels.

Back to happy...

Check out this lovely photo of Brad and Lucy on tour at Cathedral Cove on the Coromandel Peninsula, NZ.

Lesley wore the Garmin this morning without flippers, I'll upload her course later when technology becomes my friend... But, while we're on the subject, it seems that I might not have been 'the one' who pressed the start button again on Lesley's last report, not mentioning any names though, Stephen...

Water Temperature 23.7
Air Temperature 19.5
Sunrise 6.29am
Sunset 7.50pm
Low Tide: 8.18am
High Tide: 2.15pm