View from the hotel

Beautiful bay views

Our terrace

We met the group last night and had a dinner together with our guides Francesco and Glenn. Let me describe.
Three couples from Sydney. One couple from London. All friends. Turns out there are multi coincidences. They are ex-water polo players (with their wives) from Sydney Uni and although in their 50’s know our son Rob from Syd Uni water polo. Then turns out one of the ladies knows my sister Catherine as her children went to Catherine’s school ! Liz also knows my niece Helen because they swim together at Bronte swim club where they live!
So many coincidences from the Sydney crew.
The others are Emily – 30’s from UK; Clare – 30’s from Canada, Isabella – 30’s a Swiss doctor. All 3 have done swim treks before. In fact there are 3 doctors, a nurse and a radiographer, so medically we are fine.
Then there are 3 brothers one from Paris,one from London and last from California – they are half French and range from 30-40. All married, but on a brothers bonding week. This is there 3rd swim trek. Last swimmer is the class clown Chris from London. Very funny, very pale and now quite red from sunburn .

We had our first group meeting and had to introduce ourselves and say a little about our swimming. Well I didn’t have much to say except I’ve only been swimming for 4 month! And that I’m so nervous I could vomit!

Everyone seemed lovely and encouraging especially Francesco our lovely Italian guide. He is from Rome and seems to be the loveliest guy.

The next morning we met down at the little beach near the hotel. The TEST!
We started with a 300m test swim, to group us. I got a yellow hat! Then breakfast and we were given our hats. I’m (naturally) in the slowest group with Isabella and Liz. So off we went for our 1.7 km swim around the beautiful bays to our picnic spot – an unused convent only reached by swimming or by boat. Had lunch and rested and wandered around then at 2.30 we set off for a 4 km swim. I cleverly stayed on the rubber duckie with Francesco and dropped in half way through the swim. We finished at a jetty then had to dress and walk 2-3 km back to our hotel. Talk about tired! And it’s only day 1!

Poor Chris our one Englishman -turns out he is a very good swimmer but so pale he burns easily . He has burn marks on various parts of his pale skin.

Small local  beach for a little training!

When we finally got back to the hotel we had to swim 4 short laps by ourselves to be videotaped for analysis of our stroke! More swimming!

We cleaned up had an hour off then walked a km to our restaurant for dinner.
To bed by 10.30 and a Sunday sleep.

Tomorrow start at 7 am for a crossing from island to island.