Xmas day, each year in Weymouth Harbour, features a harbour swim, all in the name of charity (and an excuse to get out of the house in the morning for a number of people I suspect).
Weymouth, for a long time, didn't really have it's own canoe club. Instead many of us got involved in canoeing/kayaking through Weymouth Canoe Lifeguards, who are always asked to provide safety cover for the harbour swim. This year is no exception.
When I did my first harbour swim cover, I coulnd't help notice that our numbers on the water were swelled with lots of strangers in kayaks - these turned out to be older, ex-members of the lifeguards, who kept coming back just for this cover. These days, I guess I fall into the 'older, ex-member' category as I suspect I'll only know a few of the practising lifeguards these days.
Still, it's always a great morning. The 'safety' team arrives early, some more enthusiastic than others after the night before. Xmas cheer then takes over and we merrily attempt to throw each other in from the harbour walls, capsize anyone who is in a kayak, and generally keep the crowds entertained as they gather for the race. In the past, certain members of the lifeguards have been known to turn up with various excuses about why they can't help out on the water that year - but that hasn't stopped them being thrown into the water fully clothed!
After the 'serious' business of providing the safety cover is done (we usually get a few casualties - after all it's considered bad form by the competitors to wear wetsuits/dry suits) , we recommence the crowd entertainment. In the past, we've had various attempts at not-so synchronised swimming and at getting Father Christmas to walk across the harbour on a raft of kayaks, but I think generally the crowd doesn't care what we get up to as long as they see reluctant lifeguards thrown of the harbour walls into the water.
For some swimmers, there's the chance of being declared the winner. For others, it's just an opportunity to get cold, wet and look stupid in various fancy dress costumes.
Ollie Bray has put me onto "Snap Preview Anywhere", which I've installed on my blog page today. It's a great little utility which allows the viewer to hover over any hyperlink on the blog and get a preview of what the linked page looks like. Having seen it in action on Ollie's site for a while, I've finally got round to looking at how it works - and it's easy to install.
Snap itself also looks very interesting. It's a search engine that presents the viewer with a preview of the page so you can decide whether to click through.
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Portland Coastguard is co-ordinating it's third major search in as many weeks. All of the major rescue teams are involved: RNLI lifeboats, HMCG helicopters, HMCG search teams, Royal Navy vessels and many unsung others.
Wednesday evening, the skipper of a fishing vessel went missing following the capsize of his fishing vessel. Two days earlier, Peter Lynham from Weymouth went overboard while laying crab pots. In late November, Kyle Moore went missing in Portland Harbour.
These incidents have set me thinking in many ways.
In a society in which global media stories bring us death & destruction 24/7 via satellite news channels, Internet sites etc, it's easy these days to forget that these lost souls are friends, relatives, work colleagues of many people who will be affected for a long, long time. It's easy for the public awareness to drift away, forgetting those still affected. My thoughts go out to those still waiting for news on their loved ones, still wondering what happened, still hoping for a positive outcome.
The latest incident has made me think a lot about "Internet distance". The latest boat came from Fife, in Scotland. I regularly read various blogs from Scottish friends, and keep in contact with them via the Internet - to the extent that Scotland no longer seems a far away place. In fact, the Internet now means that you can be there in milliseconds through blogs, email, skype etc - there and elsewhere. To me, this has shrunk the world to a point where the loss of someone from Fife feels as much a local tragedy as if it was my mext door neighbour. I read of kayakers deaths from all round the world and feel like I've lost a friend who I just hadn't yet met.
Finally, it's another reminder of the danger posed to those who venture out at sea. Wenley has recently posted a blog on the excellent "Essentials of Sea Survival" book by Golden & Tipton. Again, "Internet Distances" make me regard Wenley as a friend, through reading his blog - I've never met him, I may never do, but through his blog I have got to know him, and other bloggers.
Clearly as sea kayakers, we only ever encounter a small amount of what the oceans can through at us, not because we choose to, but because the seas choose to not allow us to experience more of their strength without serious repercussions.
I've just purchased a copy of this - these sorts of books intrigue me for all sorts of reasons, but what caught my eye in this one, was a section where Shaun Tomson talks about surfing at Jeffrey's Bay - his local break - as a 50yr old, surrounded by experienced pro surfers half his age, and about his exhileration at catching one of the best waves he'd ever caught there.
A while ago, I was asked at some management training thing I went on, to name three three 'heros' - people who I respected for their achievements in life. After a while, I named Sonny Barger, Gerry Lopez, and Eric Jackson - not because I'd ever met any of them (though have been in the same surf line-up as Gerry Lopez once) but because they've all lived their lives refusing to conform to other people's expectations. Okay, so I've sold out, and in my day job I have a career in financial services, where I'm a senior manager.
I'm fairly close to turning 40yrs old myself (well, a couple of years off anyway), and increasingly I'm hearing people saying things like "When are you going to grow up?"and "Snowboarding is a young man's game" as if somehow just getting older means that I have to give up the sports that I've enjoyed all my life on the grounds of my age. Okay, so I might not be throwing 'blunt mcnasty's' down at the local playwave, but I'm still mountain biking, river & surf kayaking, surfing, snowboarding, etc and I don't feel the need to give up - in fact my snowboarding and surf kayaking has just been getting better and better over the last few years.
Just prior to buying this book, I was flipping through the pages of Method snowboard mag, and in the latest one they have a series of interviews with 30+yr old pro-snowboarders. One was asked, what do you think is the upper age for snowboarding, and his reply was simply "I guess we're the generation that's going to find out."
I'm increasingly finding it hard to understand the adventure sports marketing teams who still believe that only teenagers get involved in adventurous sports. I think in reality, these sports are still relatively young and people have yet to see just how long people will keep participating - Snowboarding & skiing are two great examples - plenty of older guys ski, and it's accepted. Snowboarding is still seen as something for the kids. But wait, skiing has been around for many, many years, whilst snowboarding is a recent phenomenon. The result?? Older guys are simply still defining the upper age limits for involvement.
Here's to growing old, not growing up...
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