When everyone else is away on holidays, those that are left make for the bay. It’s like the water belongs to those who wake early
This year, instead of heading away on holidays like much of my inner-city suburb, I’ve enjoyed the quiet. Streets which are usually heaving with traffic now move close to the speed limit.This year, those of us left behind have been meeting almost daily at Williamstown beach, creating a sort of unofficial rhythm to our days. We began swimming in the bay during winter, when the water broke your spirit with its cold.
We meet at the concrete bench near the lifesaving club, the five of us pulling on caps and goggles. Conversations are started but never fully finished. Maybe there’s a burst of laughter as we share a moment from the night before. Then, wading in, we test the temperature, check how visible the sand is, if there are jellyfish lurking, a stingray maybe.
On the morning of the last day of the year we swim out into a bay studded with swimmers, all of us farewelling the year that has been. Treading water out deep at the second pole, there are scraps of conversation traded among strangers, united only in their love of morning swims. A dog has managed to paddle out too; she’s with a group of women, waiting for them to stop talking so she can shepherd them back to shore. A man tells us he’s over from Arizona, and it’s his second swim in as many days.
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