Saltwater

[puddleshark]

Sunlight veining the rocky floor of Kimmeridge Bay.



22 degrees C, and a strong north-westerly breeze. I swam in the sea today, for the first time in many years.

I never intended to swim. I intended to paddle sedately in rock pools and hold the little underwater camera under the surface to take pictures of weed... But I forgot to check the tide tables before setting off for Kimmeridge, and when I arrived, it was high, high tide. Only a tiny strip of rocky beach between the waves and the crumbling clay cliffs, and that inhabited by fossil hunters chipping at newly fallen rocks with their hammers. The rock pools all deep underwater. And the waves quite strong, and the water murky.

But when I waded a little way into the water, it turned out easier to swim that keep my footing on the rocks, with the waves trying to wash me over. So I swam. And the water was cold, but not unbearably so.

I hadn't forgotten how to swim, but getting out, that transition from buoyancy - the waves lifting me - to sudden sodden human, that was quite hard. I don't know how the mermaids do it.


Murkiness.


Weed.