Current Affairs

When the wind blows the lake is colder. After 5 years I have observed that the wind piles up the warm water at one end where it sinks and picks up the colder water and then reappears at the other end ready to tingle the bather,  as he relaxes with a gasp!

Today, as opposed to the record 27C in the calm sunshine of last week,  the temperature was 17C and as the wind blew along the lake I could feel the weak current moving me backwards, whenever I stopped swimming my gentle slow breaststroke. Furthermore, I could feel that my lower regions were also the same temperature too ...as it had all been mixed up. 

But that was earlier in the week and today I elected to  get up early and go to swim in the sea at Overy Staithe just an hour and fifteen minutes away. Not long, if I were to look sharpish and get there before the crowds started to block the single carriageway A47 to Kings Lynn.

 After a successful traffic-free trip I drove into Burnham Market even before anything was open and for custom's sake I sat and drank my thermos coffee and absorbed again the beauty of the trees on the grassy green, people-watched the odd dog-walker and read the draconian notices on the closed shop-doorways. For this is the village which has not moved on from the very first lockdown. 

'Masks will be worn' at all times and only two were permitted to enter at the same time. The baker's was opening however, but I was too scared to go in and ask if they would bend the rules and sell me a croissant. So I drove on to Overy Staithe which was  already busy with sailing families as it was high tide.

Unfortunately there was no hard shoreline parking and what remained of the shoreline was ramjammed full of dads and kids rigging and trailering and generally getting into a jumble and so I had to drive off again. Which was a shame as the ferry there was already working and I was looking forward to the occasional treat of floating down the creek on the ebbing tide. Something that doesn't happen too often. And today it was exactly the right moment.

I'm told that this floating is a reckless act of self danger by some who love me, but I feel that a gentle drift seawards is a marvellous experience, so long as at that end one ensures not to get popped out like a cork into the North Sea. So a brief crawl to the beach is needed, but really there is no risk at all.

Unlike at Croyde Bay in Devon last month where I had to be hauled out of the sea by the RNLI as I floated off in the direction of Lundy Island helped by a vigorous rip tide. 

I duly observed the swimming flags at the time, but noticed too the absence of any waves in that region which I subsequently realised indicates a powerful torrent of water returning to the ocean from the incoming waves on either side. So swimming out to have a chat with the surfer dudes in the far-out big ones, I realised that the beach was receding rather too fast and asked one of the young boys if there was indeed a rip current taking us all out.  Which he confirmed in a rather stressed way and paddled urgently, to catch a big wave, leaving me quite alone beyond even the big rollers. 

Luckily after a time a bloke with a surfboard marked RNLI Lifesaver passed by and after a brief chat and a further failed attempt for me to swim inwards he suggested I 'better get on' and so I agreed and after 20 minutes we were back on shore again. The loudhailers shouted warnings now and everyone had to get out and I walked back up the beach where my family were making sandcastles and who had heard the blaring announcements. "That will be Daddy," my daughter was reported to have said.

So, as there was nowhere to park at Overy Staithe at all, I drove off to Wells next the Sea and sat on the quayside eating a breakfast box in the sunshine. The current was slowing up but still coming in and I watched a strip of seaweed creep by and come to a stop. Perhaps only three minutes later the passing of the moon, an object weighing a quarter of the earth's size, showed as the seaweed began to creep back again, reversing towards the sea again. 

 

Some kayakers floated around and I wondered if they were waiting for the free lift down the harbour channel. Some seemed to have some luggage with them strapped on. Maybe they were wild camping somewhere on a canoe trip from somewhere to somewhere else?  But as the water picked up speed I slipped into my wetsuit in the high street, behind some visually ineffective crab pots. Then finding a space between  the many children on the edge, dropping crab nets, I leant back, dropped in  and suddenly found myself gathering speed in the town centre harbour on my way to the sea and the coastguard lookout, and new lifeboat station half a mile away at the other end. 

 

After a short while I realised I would be swimming in front of the serious-looking Harbourmaster's Office and wondered if I would be called out and dressed down, or worse, for my reckless activity, but it seemed to be closed and soon was swept down between the green and red metal buoys and boats and yachts all around me. It seemed with a bit of breaststroke and the odd backstroke I was making around 15 knots seaward but I was only just keeping up with the walkers on the bank beside the channel so it was maybe in truth just 2. 

Now and then I had to duck out of the main channel as a tour boat or fisherman charged past, but 25 minutes later I came ashore and warmed by the sun walked over to the main beach to see the thousands of people crammed along the tiny shore. 

In an hour I walked back to town, against the human current and felt a wave against me of people dragging children, dogs and huge pantechnions of essential beach kit down to the seaside. 

I counted 60 people a minute and reckoned that would amount to 4,000 people an hour streaming to the beach. And it was only midday.

I talked to the coastguard volunteers watching from a wooden eyrie. What were they looking for? "Those getting stuck on the opposite side of the sand bars, and reckless swimmers."

 

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