Dawny's Cockatoo Island Swim 2012: a kick start to the ocean swimming season in Balmain, Sydney

Dawn Fraser Pool & Cockatoo Island in the background.

IN another life I lived in Balmain. The first house I ever owned was just up the hill from Elkington Park and the Dawn Fraser Pool. It was a cute semi-detached with two bedrooms, lounge, eat-in kitchen and bathroom.

If I hadn't made the mistake of getting married I'd probably still own that house today. But that's another story. 

Every so often I drive down the street. My old home has been in the same hands for a while now and has a second storey. It looks nice. 

My point is --- when I lived in Balmain in the mid-'80s I would be woken at 6am every weekday by the siren on Cockatoo Island that signalled the start of work for the island's employees. We're talking the mid-1980s when the island was still used as a shipbuilding site. Those were the days when Australia still had industry and manufacturing. 

I'm not about to go all soggy with nostalgia because these days the island has become a tourist destination and Sydney Harbour is much cleaner. So much so that bull sharks frequently swim around it on their cosmopolitan meanderings. YIKES. 

The good news is this swim is in its 12 year (maybe 11th, not sure) and I've been doing it for five years. No shark sightings yet - I guess there's always a first time. 

Fortunately it wasn't yesterday. The event has grown more popular in line with the exponential growth of ocean swimming. I dunno how many punters turned up yesterday but it was crowded on the boardwalk inside the confines of the baths. 

The 1.1km and 2.5km swims start outside Dawny's - in the water next to the jetty. For me, that's always the scariest part - and I've mentioned numerous times about starts in the harbour.  

Imagine this: several hundred pairs of legs dangling like bait for the bullies. I try to stamp it out of my mind while waiting for the bloke to pull the bloody trigger on the starter gun but it's impossible.

Inside the traditional harbour baths.

I was in the second wave of swimmers for the 2.5km event and started in the 'cool-ish' harbour with my swim squad mates - a bunch of competitive middle-aged codgers who don't even view me as a vague threat. I console myself with the fact that the average lifespan of the Australian female is 85 and that of men is 79.

The event started on pretty much on time and I think we got away at 9.11am. The swim starts early because of ferry and other boat movements on the harbour. 

I enjoyed the swim but still found it hard. It takes a while to get to the island - the idea is to focus on the crane on the far right-hand corner. We then swam by the side of the island and then anti-clockwise around the back. 

People camping in the permanent tents on the island snapped photos of us. It must have been a pleasant surprise to wake up to all these bloody eejits racing around the island in assorted coloured caps.

I always feel like Cockatoo Island is more square than rectangular because the sides appear to be really long. Visibility is poor in the opaque greenish water. For about half the swim we were striking our way through jelly blubbers. This happens every year. There must be thousands in the harbour. 

Getting back in to the jetty was easier this year as the sun was behind a cloud and we didn't have to deal with the glare. 

I don't know what my time was - I always forget to look. When I got out, after accepting a helping hand, I forgot that I had to walk up the jetty to get my time because Dawny's is one of the few swims left in Sydney that times the race manually. Because I stood and admired the view for a minute I will probably end up with a slower time! 

My Daughters Missy Hissy and Precious Princess did the swim, too. PP's boyfriend did the 1.1km swim wearing boardshorts. 

Hiss, Princess, The Boyfriend.

I told him that to be a bona fide ocean swimmer it's budgie smugglers or nothing! 

PS: The Hiss came third in her age group and won a pair of swim goggles. 

Value for money: It costs $35 to enter the swim online and $45 on the day. Afterwards, competitors can gorge themselves on fruit donated by Harris Farm. I'm talking delicious watermelon, rockmelon, apples, red grapes and oranges. If that's not enough, competitors also get ticket that gets them a free brekky comprising bread roll, bacon, egg, sausage and tomato - avec barbecue or tomato sauce. 

Score out of 10: 8

Any gripes? Electronic timing devices and touch mats are the way to go; after the swim it takes ages before the prize winners for each age group are announced - it's because it's all done manually! 

Elkington Park, Balmain.

 Next week is Coogee!

Wildlife? What wildlife? sharks and muppets in Lake Macquarie

Mr Mild Mannered and Mr VB at the ferry/rivercat at Belmont

So it starts with Mr Very Big sending me a cryptic text message about the 'wildlife' on Lake Macquarie, the location of the annual Across the Lake Swim from Coal Point to Belmont, near Newcastle.

"Whaddya mean by wildlife?" I ask him at swim squad on Friday morning, the day before the swim.

When he tells me that somebody told him to watch out for bull sharks, I scoff. "Rubbish," I say. "My daughter's sailed at Belmont and boats capsize there all the time. There are no sharks in Lake Macquarie."

I reassure him there's nothing to worry about. What would an Irishman with delusions of swimming grandeur know?

After squad I return home and key in to a Google search on my computer: 'Are there bull sharks in Lake Macquarie?' 

Arrrgggghhh.

What a muppet. Of course there are bloody sharks. Hundreds of 'em, it seems. And not only bullies. Whalers too! An alarming fact is that the relatively harmless hammerhead hangs out in the lake (it can nip if harassed but it's unable to chomp a human in half because it's gummy) and is being targeted by local fishermen, who reel them in for a bit of fun. Bogans.

Of course, all sharks can be scary. However, it's the bullies and bronze whalers that are the real worry.

With that knowledge tucked firmly into my amygdala I prepared for the Saturday swim. Miss Freeasabird stayed at my place on Friday night. On Saturday morning we rose at 4.30am (I woke up at 3am and couldn't go back to sleep) and drove up the Pacific Highway to meet Mr VB at 5.30am. We tumbled into his 4WD and cruised up the F1 to the Belmont 16ft Sailing Club. Belmont is 130 km from Sydney and takes around one-and-a-half hours by car.

It was such a beautiful day. Cloudless. Even at 7.30am you could feel the heat of the sun. We met up with several other swim-squad mates, including Mr Mild Mannered, and jumped on the second of three ferries to Coal Point. 

From Coal Point we could just make out the silhouette of the sailing club on the other side. That was our goal - a straight 3.8 km line from one side of the lake to the other. There were buoys set out along the course as guides including the three big yellow cubes that featured the distances - 1000 metres, 2000 metres, 3000 metres. No worries mate. 

Glare. Looking across to Belmont from Coal Point

There was very little wind and the lake was glassy. I waded into the warm weedy water and tried to switch off the panic button. 'Nobody has ever been taken by a shark on Lake Macquarie.' This was to be my mantra for the duration of the swim.

There were three waves. I think I was in the last. Can't remember. Whatever. Once I got going and cleaned out my foggy goggles  I noticed several things: water temperature, weed, water colour, sun. 

The water was tepid, almost bath temperature. Nice but not as refreshing as the ocean. You could call it murky but as my hands entered the water I was mesmerised (for a little while) by its golden hue and fat silver bubbles streaming up my arms.

The sun was a bugger. It was hanging over the other side of the lake at Belmont, which makes sense because the direction was east. I couldn't see a lot because of the glare. 

At around the 2 km mark I noticed I was on my own. Where had all the other swimmers gone? Eek. Sharks always go for the weakest penguin. I WAS THE WEAKEST PENGUIN. 

Then the sun snuck behind a cloud and all I could think was BULL SHARKS LOVE WARM MURKY WATER AND CLOUDY DAYS. My little penguin body shuddered.

There was nothing to do but forge ahead. Coming across my friend Mr M (aka Sharkback) was a godsend. We paced each other for the final half of the swim. I had no idea where I was and nor did he. Fortunately, we found a swimmer who had organised a friend to paddle beside her on a kayak. We stuck to them like glue for the latter part of the swim. 

On the way in, Mr M thought he could escape from me but I paced him all the way, stroke for stroke. When we walked across the line together at Belmont I had spare fuel in my tank.

My time wasn't wonderful and all my swim-squad peeps were already home and hosed but I felt good. This was my first swim over 3km and I made it - in one piece. 

The one thing I learnt is that it's not easy to swim in a straight line for 3.8 km. Mr Mild Mannered said he spent his youth swimming at the Merewether Ocean Baths in Newcastle, which doesn't have black lines. This taught him to swim in a straight line.

On the way home, Miss Freeasabird, Mr VB and I made several detours (including to two Aldi stores in search of those crystals that suck out dampness because Miss Freeasabird is now living in a mouldy old basement in an eastern suburbs terrace and is finding it hard to breathe).

I digress. We pulled into Catherine Hill Bay on the way back home. I love this place. I've written about it before because the developers want to go in there and tear the place apart but the locals have campaigned for many years to keep their heritage mining village intact. If you read this blog, you must visit Catherine Hill Bay. It's glorious. 

Tomorrow I'll write up my experience of the Long Reef swim on Sydney's northern beaches. 

Now for something completely different in the lead-up to Christmas: let's talk about sharks

I picked up a postcard that advertised an exhibition at the National Maritime Museum called Planet Shark - Predator or Prey. It's on until the February 27, 2011.

As an ocean swimmer, I find sharks fascinating and terrifying. I don't think about them every time I enter the open water, but when I get separated from the peloton (I told you I was slow and lacked a sense of direction) my imagination goes into overdrive as I consider the sonar signals my kicking size-7 feet might send out to a horde of ravenous carnivores.

Bruce the vegetarian shark does not exist. Sharks eat meat using their multiple rows of monstrous dagger-shaped teeth to tear into human flesh as the victim thrashes in a sea of her own blood while her limbs are severed - one by one. And so on and so forth. Blah blah blah.

But because I'm a rational person, I know my chances of being attacked by a shark are miniscule. On http://www.funny2.com/, there's a list of odds, which claims the chance of dying from a shark attack is 1 in 300,000,000.

This American website says 1 in 3 people will die from heart disease (go easy on the plum pudding and custard on Christmas Day) and there's a 1 in 18,585 chance of carking it in a car accident. And to really get you in a festive mood, the chance of dying from any kind of injury during the next year is 1 in 1820.

Sharks are seriously dangerous and I'm not gonna dangle my tootsies off most of the coast of South Australia or WA, but I'm also not getting my knickers in a knot when all the ocean swimming events I enter put swimmer safety first.

Here's what Time Out magazine says of the Maritime Museum exhibition:
Explore the murky myths and fascinating facts which have surrounded one of the most misunderstood animals on earth for centuries. Journey through Planet Shark and see full-scale specimen models, fossils, real teeth and jaws, original items from the 1975 movie Jaws and interviews with shark attack survivors. Gain a new level of respect and understanding for the oceans oldest predator.

Survivors of shark attacks often become sharks' greatest advocates. Navy diver Paul de Gelder, who lost his right hand and lower leg when he was attacked by a bull shark in Sydney Harbour in 2009, now lobbies the UN for stronger international trade regulations to protect sharks.

In an interview in September, de Gelder said: "Do we have the right to drive any animal to the brink of extinction before any action is taken? Regardless of what an animal does according to its base instincts of survival, it has its place in our world. We have an obligation to protect and maintain the natural balance of our delicate ecosystems."

I didn't make the High Five but I'm up for the 2.5 around Cockatoo Island

SIGH. MAKE THAT A DOUBLE.

My entry into the Romance Writers of Australia High Five contest didn't make it into the top six finalists. But I'm fine with that (sure - pour me another glass of pinot ya bastards!).

I submitted the first chapter of my ms with no expectations. Still, I was disappointed when my name wasn't on the finalists' list. The judges' feedback should be coming in soon, which makes me even more fearful. If my writing really sucks, in their opinion, I will need to re-think this ms. I might just find a drawer somewhere in all this mess, shove it away, and start something new.

Maybe I will die like Van Gogh and my work will be celebrated after I am gone. I'm joking guys! It's romance for Gawd's sake!

But wouldn't it be one of life's biggest rip-offs to have your work acknowledged posthumously? I suppose Stieg Larsson is a recent example, though he was already published and well-known in Sweden. He wasn't penniless, starving and half-crazed like poor Vincent.

Moving right along... this weekend is my first ocean swim for the 2009/10 season. I'm going into this one with a feeling of trepidation and a tummy bug that's caused me grief for the past week.

It's the Dawny swim around Cockatoo Island in Sydney Harbour. Dawn Fraser pool is a harbour pool in the inner-west suburb of Balmain. Because the pool has bars to stop the bull sharks from getting in (joking again), the swim starts from a jetty next to it.

There's a 1 km option - out to the first buoy and back - and the 2.5 km swim, which circumnavigates the island. I've done the shorter swim before but this is my first attempt at the longer one.

I'm praying the only thing I run into is jelly blubbers - from memory they're everywhere.

The water temp is supposed to be a pleasant 21 degrees. I hear bull sharks like it warm. And meaty.

If you don't hear from me after the swim, tell Spanner the manuscript is stuffed down the back of my undies drawer - otherwise he'll never find it.

This photo is lifted from my favourite ocean swims website in the universe as we know it http://www.oceanswims.com/

Shark shields in the news as summer approaches

In anticipation of a bumper shark season, the media is already revving up the public imagination with its reports on shark shields, which will be worn by rescue divers this season.

The shark shield is a repellent, but you don't spray it on (how cool would that be). Rather, it emits an electric field that 'induces spasms in sharks snouts'. Apparently, it doesn't hurt the shark or the environment. I read that it only works when it's stationary - I take it that 'it' means the shield is stationary and not the shark.

You'd need nerves of steel to resist the urge to flee with a shark bearing down on you with a toothy grin. But I suppose you've got nothing to lose (or should that be win) either way.

If you've been following my blog as thousands around the world have, you'll have read my numerous shark posts from last season. In February through to April there were many shark sightings and several serious attacks in Sydney waters - in the harbour at Woolloomooloo, at Bondi Beach and at Avalon on the northern beaches.

Two of the attacks took place before dawn and the Bondi mauling in the evening, which is when sharks are hungry.

Simple solution: don't swim at dawn or at dusk when sharks are on the prowl for tucker.

Expect more shark posts as the days grow warmer and crowds of potential shark bait flock to Sydney's beaches AND THE OCEAN SWIMS SEASON GETS UNDERWAY...

Never smile at a crocodile and don't swim in the dark with a Great White Shark.

Bull shark cruises Sydney Harbour from Manly to Abbotsford and back

Rupert Murdoch's tabloid The Daily Telegraph has managed to run a story on SHARKS, even though it's mid-winter in Sydney.

Last summer SHARKS were Page 1 headliners.

In early February, navy diver Paul de Gelder lost a hand and a leg after he was attacked in Woolloomooloo Bay, Sydney Harbour, at around 7am. The culprit was a BULL SHARK.

Less than a week later, a 2.5 metre GREAT WHITE SHARK almost tore off Glenn Orgias's hand while he was surfing at Bondi around 8pm. His hand could not be re-attached.

Now SHARKS ARE BACK. But the thing is, they've never really been away.

In March the Department of Primary Industries tagged over 55 SHARKS in NSW to trace their movements. The newspaper story is mostly about a tagged BULL SHARK that recently spent quality time in Sydney's waterways.

From March 24 to April 4, the '2.47m menace' travelled more than 300km around Sydney before heading out to sea. Interestingly, it cruised 230km during the night - when it would have been feeding.

If you know Sydney, you might be a little unnerved to learn the SHARK visited Abbotsford twice. That suburb is a long, winding way up the Parramatta River.

The SHARK also visited Manly twice.

My theory is the BULL SHARK did what a lot of Sydneysiders do - checked out the real estate, found it too expensive and headed north.

Headline idea: Smart SHARK attacks bull market

She's a man-eater... wish you never ever met her at all

Those pesky tabloid journos are at it again.

This time they're floating about on Sydney Harbour hauling in bull sharks by the dozen. Or that's what they'd like you to think. Talk about a beat up.

Mrs BS was going about her business yesterday, opting for kingfish over human flesh, when a fisherman hired by The Daily Telegraph reeled her in. The scary pic on the Tele's front page (where was the photographer when he took that photo?) is accompanied by the headline:

GOTCHA! EXCLUSIVE: Sydney Harbour, 1.15pm. How we caught a man-eater

What a relief! I can now confidently enter the Sydney Harbour Ocean Swim this Sunday, safe in the knowledge that Mrs BS's culinary preferences don't extend to females.

She's a man-eater!

Because of the extended media coverage of the shark story - there have been two shark attacks in Sydney in the past month - the harbour swim organisers have taken extra precautions and have doubled the number of underwater patrol persons to six and have stationed observers at three spots around the course - Mrs Macquarie's Point, Farm Cove and Pinchgut.

Personally, I am pleased there's extra sharkbait in the water but I don't know how much the divers can see down there. It's murky on a clear day. I pray it doesn't rain the night before.

I'm more sceptical about the shark spotters. Imagine it, the swim is in full swing with several hundred swimmers thrashing about when the guy at Mrs Macquarie's Point thinks he sees a fin in what is already a melee!

Too late, methinks.

But hey, what's life without risks?

Having said that, I hope the boofy blokes go first.

NO BULL - JAWS IS BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The horror thriller Jaws is on the telly this Saturday!

No doubt the programmers at Channel Ten were prompted to run the 1975 classic after the numerous shark sightings and two attacks off Sydney in the past month.

The bullshark responsible for tearing off the hand of a navy clearance diver and mauling his right leg so badly that it had to be amputated is apparently the size of a small car.

Whoah! So, that's what happens when you're hit by a Mitsubishi Lancer?

The bull shark, according to scientists who exaimined the diver's westsuit, is about 2.7 metres long, 'the length of a small sedan'.

The tagline for the Steven Spielberg film is: 'Amity Island had everything, Clear skies. Gentle surf. Warm water. People flocked there every summer. It was the perfect feeding ground.'

I'm surprised some enterprising journalist hasn't come along and replaced 'Amity Island' with 'Bondi beach' for the perfect lead paragraph.

Let's just hope that the Sydney Harbour swim organisers have got it right when they reassure nervous swimmers in the event that it will be all right on the day.

That's what the authorities were telling the tourists at Amity Island!