HAVE a look at the beaches down the East Coast, Seven Mile Beach or Kingston or Bruny, and you’ll spot them. On the Huon, they’re called the Franklin Frosties. Those on the sand at Seven Mile are the Waves, at Taroona they’re called the WOSSAs.
Elsewhere, there are Weedy Seadragons, Blue Bottles, SeaHags, Salty Bitches and Salt Shakers. These are a hardy communities of humans braving the (mostly) ocean waters around our coast, ready to take the plunge, a swim or just a dip in Tasmania’s winter waters. They are members of loosely configured cold water swimming groups, and they’re everywhere you care to look in Tasmania. For those belonging to the Waves SMB (Seven Mile Beach), you’ll have to be early, dawn or shortly thereafter. Even at the end of winter, there are days when it’s likely to be barely above freezing here. So cold, in fact, that ice has formed on the sand at their feet. But this group – among them, Liz and Helen, Susanne, Anne, Stuart and Paul – is undeterred.
In the non-beach world, they are nurses and airline executives, fitness consultants, employed in the forestry sector, working and retired. But not here. They are drawn together not by professional relationships, but a relationship they’ve formed with the water. And with each other, in the water. “There’s an anonymity that we like,” one of them tells me. Ally Horswill and her pal Sarah Ledwell started this group a little while back.
“We were walking on the beach, Sarah and I, and figured Chill out, it’s really cool we should go swimming instead,” recalls Ally. “There’s nobody about and the water looked inviting. Cold water immersion can be a bit of a shock at first, but wow, it’s exhilarating. “And while that first time was a bold step for us, we realised that to keep it up, we’d need others, the kind of support that comes with numbers.” So they became a group of like-minded people, getting together for a coldwater swim in the mornings.
“Through Facebook and people we knew, we began meeting people from outside this immediate area. Next thing, we had our own little community out here. And there’s a sense of safety in numbers,” she says. “It’s also a great way to start your day, because you feel really good afterwards,” another member tells me. “It’s good for your mental health, as well as your physical well-being, and most important, I like the camaraderie.” There’s a good deal of health information that says coldwater swimming is good for the cardiovascular system, pumping up blood circulation.
New arrivals are cautioned to be careful. It’s unwise to strip down to bathers and run into 11 degree water, or as low as nine degrees during mid-July. But slowly, slowly, over a few days, the body starts to adjust. This particular morning, the beach has attracted a variety of walkers, those with dogs, those enjoying the beach alone. Spotting one interested dog walker, one of the Waves asks if they’d like to not just see the water, but join the group themselves. Out there, the waves are modest affairs, the kind you can walk through and retain your footing on the sand below.
Ally and her group generally stay close to shore and always look out for each other. From the beach, you hear them talking, laughing as the cold, paradoxically, gives them energy. It’s not the swimming, but the community