On the town!

Chapter 138 – A Life that Sucks (but some days it sucks less than others)

Shelley Clark won the Traversee du Lac Memphremagog, over 34 km, in Canada on Sunday, August 5. In her travels around the world for open water swims, Shelley has a tradition of emailing friends with accounts of her experiences, often bad. Australia’s open water swimmers receive very little help from their governing body to pursue their sport, particularly to take part in events overseas in which there is no official Australian representation. Shelley calls her emails: “Chapter x – A Life that Sucks”. This is her account of a day in which it didn’t suck quite so much.

This is a tale of extraordinary ticker.

Lac Memphremagog World Cup #8, Aug 5, 07
  
Well here I am in the province of Quebec in Canada. I have paid a fair bit of money and been excused from university and working at Gloria Jean’s to come here and compete in some of the longest toughest races in the world.

In Canada, I have 3 in total, 1st being a 10km world cup race in Lac St Jean. It is part of the FINA marathon circuit. I finished 4th in this race and was beaten by some of the world’s top open water athletes and Olympic medal hopefuls. There were 4 of us who kept together for 9km in a fairly fast 10km swim. The last 1km was an all out sprint to the finish with me finishing 4th behind girls with much more speed than I have. I was very satisfied with this swim as the 10km is not my event and I had travelled to Canada to race in the longer races.

The 10km was on Thursday and the 32km Lac St Jean swim was on Saturday, so I had 1.5 days to recover and to back up again for the toughest race on the circuit. The 32km in Lac St Jean is so tough because it is so unpredictable. Thursday when we started the 10km the water was 20 degrees. Later that afternoon when I went back for another swim the water temp was 24 degrees. It had jumped 4 degrees in about 6 hours - something that you would think defies science. But that is Lac St Jean: beautiful one day and horrific the next. It is this unpredictability that makes it so hard. You have no idea what to prepare for.

Shelley Clark drifting in the Nando blue hole, in Espiritu Santo, Vanuatu, in June 2007. Conditions were a bit different than 34 km across Lac Memphremagog in Canada on August 5.

I must say that I was a little stiff going into the 32km from the 10km a couple of days before. In this race, we swim 32km from one side of the lake to the other (it’s a really big lake). The last 400 of this swim is a timed sprint with the winner getting $500. The race started at about 17 degrees but warmed up when we got to the middle of the lake to about 20 degrees. When you have been swimming in 17 degrees, 20 feels like a warm bath.

I was able to stay with the boys for 2.5 hours. My main competition, Esther Nunez, from Spain (who has had a very good season and is leading the Women’s world cup circuit) was able to stay with the boys for about 10 min more putting her in front of me. We stayed in these positions for the rest of the race, with Esther only 150m ahead of me. At 27km my coach asked if I wanted to put in one last surge to try and beat her. At this point, I was so dead; I could barely get my arms out of the water. The water temp had dropped again, the air temp was chilly, it was overcast and we had had waves for the entire swim. In the end, I was done. Shoulders were sore and I was really lacking energy. Lucky for me, Esther and I had put such a gap on the 3rd, 4th and 5th place girls that we could have a comfortable finish. Esther 1st, me 2nd.

The next week, we all went on to Lac Memphremagog (or Magog for short). This is a lake shared with the USA about 1 hour south of Montreal. The water here was a much warmer 24 degrees. Due to problems in the past, the swim now starts and finishes in Magog. It is 34km in total - 17km up and 17km back.

This race started so very slow. The boys usually control the pack but after swimming 5 marathons in 5 weeks most of the boys were not interested in leading a pack for the final 34km swim. The girls were able to stay with the boys for 17km. At some points in the race, we would stop and have conversations with each other. Plenty of backstroke was done by everyone and some stretching stops. For me, it was so frustrating. All I wanted to do was swim. but for me to swim at the pace I wanted to, I would  have dragged along with me 15 male and female swimmers and ended my chances of winning the race. Leading a pack of swimmers for an extended period of time is like race suicide: using all your energy while your competitors relax, swimming behind you, leaving them with the energy at the end of the race to pass you and beat you. But no one wanted to lead. There were a couple of times when someone would try and break away but after 10min of trying got sick of being the only leader and would stop and go to the back of the pack. Eventually, at 16km one of the boys (the German swimmer, Studzi) got sick of travelling so painfully slow and decided to pick up the pace. For the girls, this means race on. In a race like this, the girls can only have one tactic – stay with the boys - the girl that stays with the boys the longest. wins the race.
For me, everthing went right in this race. As the boys started to move at 16km (4hours), I was starting to feel good in the water allowing me to stay with the boys the longest out of all the girls, giving me a good lead. I was only able to stay with the boys for 800m longer than the other girls but this was enough to give me a 100m lead. When I lost the boys, I continued to swim very strongly and with 12km to go I was only 200m behind them with the nearest girl 400m behind me. But a lot can happen in 12km. There was still a major threat - that I could die with all the energy I had used, and one of the 3 girls behind me could pass me and win. I knew I had to be prepared for when I hit a low spot in my race. To prepare for this, I made sure that when ever I was feeling ok, I would swim hard and surge. I did this so that I could extend my lead, making a bigger gap for girls behind to make up.

The last 8km in this race is always hard. There are always choppy waves coming from the side making it hard to get your arms out of the water and swim in a straight line. When you hit a wall in Magog, you really hit a wall and want to do nothing but get out and go home. As I continued on with this race, I just waited and waited to hit a wall knowing that when I did I would have to be mentally strong to continue holding my lead and get through it to finish the race. I waited for the pain to come and it never did. I don't know why, and I am certainly not complaining about it. But I felt strong the whole race. There was about a 2km period from 27km-29km where I switched off and the 2nd place girl started to catch me, but as soon as I realised it, I switch my brain back on and raced the last 5km to the finish.

I ended up winning the race in 8hrs 09min 11sec. The first half took 4 hours and the 2nd half 4hrs 9min. I was 10 min in front of 2nd and 25 min in front of 3rd and only 24 min behind the winning male swimmer.

All in all, I think it was just one of those days when everything comes together and you are able to swim the perfect race. It doesn't happen very often in our sport where everything goes right but luckily for me it happened on the day when I was to swim one of the hardest races in the world.

Shelley Clark

Saturday 28 July 2007, Sorrento Pier

At 3.39 pm today, Ted Baillieu and Robert Robertson entered the water at the base of the Sorrento Pier. Their aim was to swim to the Portsea Pier, the first ever 'Winter Pier to Perignon'.

Baillieu and Robertson originated the summer Pier to Perignon swim more than two decades ago.
One hour and three minutes later they succeeded! The swim was conducted under the Iceberger rule of no wetsuits. Swimming conditions were testing. A 12 degree water temperature was measured over the length of the course and both had to swim into a 15 knot westerly wind which created an oncoming swell with associated surface chop. Their body temperatures were further affected by overcast conditions.

Ted Baillieu took an early lead, electing to swim out wide, betting on catching more of the outgoing tide. However his track brought him into higher winds and rougher water conditions. Robert Robertson stayed closer to shore where the conditions were calmer but didn't afford him as much current as Ted was experiencing. Robert clawed back half of Ted's 100 metre lead off Shelley Beach only to give it back again having to swim out wide to clear Point King.

Pursued by your correspondent in the rescue craft skippered by Dave, I observed the following for the more technically minded: Both Ted and Robert maintained a consistent stroke rate from start to finish. Robert breathed to his left, Ted breathed bilaterally. Both are sensational navigators, swimming dead straight along their chosen courses. Both are deaf. There was never any response after yelling encouragement at them, both remained totally focused watching the grains of sand slip underneath them through the crystal clear water.

"Shelley Beach took a long time and it was then I realised this wasn't going to be easy," commented Robertson. "I don't think I could have lasted a lot longer."

Ted Baillieu described his swim. "I was fine until Point King, then my concentration started to wander."

Champagne and two glasses awaited the swimmers on the Portsea Pier. A scuba diving instructor had just completed his wetsuit clad class' safety debriefing on the pier when Robert & Ted emerged. He had been lecturing them on the dangers of hypothermia.

With bodies shaking from the cold, the reheating process started in the public toilets at the base of the Portsea Pier with a luke warm 'solar heated' shower. This was followed by Robert, Ted and your correspondent cramming into the two front seats of Robert’s 4 wheel drive generating much body heat, after the heater was set to 'INCINERATE' multiple water bottles were produced.

After hot showers of a politically incorrect length combined with hot tea at Ted's place, our two epic Icebergers stopped shaking (convulsing) and began to utter coherent sentences with meaningful content. "My face still hasn't heated up," Ted confided. "I'll never do that again" Robert replied. Fifteen minutes later we were standing in the Sorrento Pier car park. Ted looked wistfully out across the calm water in the evening sunset light, then offered, "What do you reckon Robbie? We could have another go now. We've proved we don't need the rescue boat. Let's go."

Cheers,
Ross MacDowell

The scene from the pier at Lorne as the peloton gathers for the 4th Annual Greg Fountain Winter Pier to Pub Swim on Saturday, July 21. Look carefully, and you might see how well rugged up most people are. Look at the brooding grey sky. Look at the wind tussling people's hair. It was a grey winter's day.

Indeed, look how well rugged up punters are here: the lass with her pool deck coat, her crocs and her two swim caps. Ingilby Dickson (at right) with his neoprene cap covering the ears and attached under chin, sitting over a ladies ruffled rubber cap, which he must have got from his gran. Why do punters dress like this? Because it's mid-winter down along The Great Ocean Road at Lorne.

Gingerly stepping onto the beach (above and at left): the sand was freezing, the weed was freezing, but Melbourne punters who get up to this kind of caper regularly claim the water was "very warm" . It was 12 degrees Celsius. Maybe for them. But this was outside the Bay (Port Phillip Bay), where, they reckoned, the water at the time was in the range of 6 deg - 7 deg C. And these eejits swim in that!

oceanswims.com travelled to Lorne especially to have a go at this Winter Pier to Pub, which follows the same course as the regular Pier to Pub at Lorne in summer. The regular swim is the biggest ocean swim in Stray'a, perhaps the world. Why did we travel al lthat way, from Godzone's Sutherland Shoire to Lorne? For the cold water. We, personally, have never swum in anything colder than 15 deg or thereabouts. We had a cold snap in Sydney in January last, which took temps down as low as 13.8 at Gerringong, ironically on the same weekend as the regular Pier to Pub swim. It was warmer there than in Sydney.

But we were curious as to how we might handle the cooler water. The tradition for the Winter Pier to Pub, you see, is that it's done without a wettie, which is fine by us, since we despise them so much and we don't own one.

This swim was started four years ago by a bunch of wettie-haters - the Brighton Icebergers, who swim in Port Phillip Bay all year 'round nude, as it were. And now, each mid-winter, they all head down to Lorne.

So how did we handle it? The oceanswims.com wrist thermometre told us at the end of the 1.2km swim that the water was 12 deg C. Much warmer than we'd feared.

We were last into the water, because we were taking the pics you see here. We didn't mind that too much, since the last thing we wanted was to dive in and head out to the start and have to wait around, treading water in that water, before the starting whistle, which went, as it turned out, when we were half way from the beach to the start, about 75 metres out. So we could just keep going.

Being last and being hurried up by the starter meant we didn't have time to hang about agonising over trivia such as temperatures and freezingness, and we just dived in and took off.

The initial sensation on diving in was of a searing cold, piercing your body like you're being irradiated. It goes right through you instantly, opening a front, a battle, between you and it. It would be easy just to stop, to get out again and rug up. All your commonsense tells you to do that. The natural body reaction is to withdraw your available body heat to your core, leaving your extremities exposed. That's where you'll start to feel it: in your fingers, your toes, your ... head, and that's why we wear three swim caps, the lower two silicon: nice, thick and protective. Most body heat is lost through the head, so we can do our best to keep it in.

And you don't get out. Ocean swimming is all about giving vent to a frontier spirit. And you're swimming, and you're swimming to challenge yourself. You don't get out and wuss away. You're exerting yourself, and swimming gets your inner engine going and it starts to generate warmth inside you. If you can hang on for a few strokes, you will start to feel it and you will start to settle down, to adjust to the temperature.

Indeed, within 50 metres, you aren't thinking of the cold, you're thinking of the effort, ie swimming, and you're generating your own warmth. The longer you go, the less the cold worries you, the more comfortable you become.

Into the breech: the peloton heads to the start.

Mind you, oceanswims.com carries our own wettie. It's built into our belly and beyond. So maybe we are better protected than some. The youngest on Saturday was a 15-year old girl who swam in a bikini, for goodness sake! The oldest, we think, was c. 80. We shared a bunk room at the Lorne Hotel on Saturday night with John Dineen, c. mid 70s. John is a regular swimmer in the bay at Brighton in what is now that 6-7 degree water. Up here in NSW, we have no idea what these conditions are like or the extremes with which these characters - true livers on the edge - are capable of dealing.

After we finished (in about 24 minutes), our generated heat kept us warm on the beach, dressed only in our budgy smugglers in the oceanswims.com colours, for ten minutes or so until we started to "cool down". Then we got real cold and started to shiver and shudder. Our friend, Big Ted, a member of parliament, not the Play School bear, said to us, "I'm a member of parliament and I'm here to help". And he gave us a hot water bottle, which we stuffed up our jumper. It was no use, though. It kept us warmer, but around closing time at the Lorne Hotel later that night, Big Ted suddenly appeared on our wing, and he said: "I've come to collect. I want your vote, and I want my water bottle back."
There was a big get together in the Lorne Hotel that night. It was a terrific cultural experience all 'round.

Early Sunday, oceanswims.com left Lorne, sort of snuck out covertly, about ten minutes before all those left were to meet on the beach for a swim, and we headed north to the airport for warmer climes of Sydney. As we headed up the road, we turned on the radio, and there was Macca on Australia All Over. One of his first items was to tell the story of an old bloke from Bathurst, in central western NSW, who had fronted at Lake Argyle in early June to enter the Lake Argyle Swim. The old bloke had run into Kieren Kelly, who'd organised a bunch of Balmoral Beach Club types up there for the swim, and he'd told Macca at the time about the old codger. Turned out, he'd been an engineer on the Ord River scheme and this was his first time back in Kununurra since then, all those decades ago. The old bugger had written to Macca himself to tell his story.

And as Macca read out his letter to Stray'a, and we headed north along the Great Ocean Road, suddenly we were struck by the overwhelming majesty of this place: from a high point on the road, which runs along the coast, above the beaches, from Lorne up to Anglesea, we could see the Split Point Lighthouse sitting beaconically on the headland at the northern end of the beach, about 20km away. The sun was just up and, at that angle, it was rising behind the lighthouse. It was a crystalline morning, so early, around 0 degrees outside the car, not a cloud in the sky, hardly a breath of wind, and not much surf. But, looking to the north, the mist rose up from the sea, which was warmer than the air temperature - we knew oit was 12 degrees - and it hovered there, above the 20km of beach break, and it drifted languidly, ethereally inland, over the sand, over the initial grasslands, over the first bit of hinterland. At Aireys Inlet, it rose up, too, from the lagoon. We drove along that beach, expecting Camelot, or Hogwarts, suddenly to loom above us. It was so devastatingly beautiful, so moving, that it evades literal description. We feel week in its wake.

We wanted to call Macca ourselves, to tell him about it. We know of his interest in swimming. But we had no hands-free on our phone and we were alone in our car, so we couldn't.

We emailed him on Monday.

Paul Beukelman was the last one in, except for oceanswims.com, tardily taking pics behind.

It was moving and we became quite emotional. People were calling in to Macca from all over Stray'a - from the red centre, from an island in Torres Strait, from Dubbo, from Bendigo, and there was the codger's letter from Bathurst, which included a poem the old bugger had written about his life in Bathurst as a snake catcher.

Experiences like this remind you not only of how beautiful the joint is, but also how diverse the country is. We can't be bigger than this country. We are but bit players skating across its surface. This coastline, with the sun illuminating the lighthouse like an olympic torch, the mist drifting mysteriously off the sea, the perfect sky, the clear air, the freezing cold ... it was breathtaking. And it was a magical complement to the cold water swim of the day before. We'd had a very special experience, and here was another very special experience that gave it an entirely different dimension. We felt very lucky, indeed. Fulfilled. Our only problem was that we were alone right then, for our queen, Mrs Sparkle had not been able to travel with us to Lorne and to experience all this with us. But we are so glad that we had this opportunity and that we seized our day.

The 4th Greg Fountain Winter Pier to Pub - named for Brighton Iceberger Greg Fountain, who hasn't been real well lately - brought 56 punters, which is more than double last year's, even though it's not promoted and notification is by word of mouth only. Youngest swimmer was 15 (a lass who swam in a bikini, for goodness sake!), and the oldest c. 80, young John Dineen (we hope that's how John's name is spelt), who also swims "nude" in the Bay at Brighton.

We up here in balmy Sydney have no idea what this kind of swimming is like. It's one of those experiences that one must get up to at some stage in their ocean swimming careers.

We know we shouldn't be encouraging him, but Beukelman (right) is known for his hi-jinks. Leaving the water, he jumped up for a piggy back on the enormous back of Alby Bardoel, whom he leaves floundering in the break behind him. Small wonder.

In the distance from Lorne, at the northern end of the Great Ocean Road, the Split Point Lighthouse stands beaconically in the setting sun, which is an exaggeration down there at this time of year. It's not so much a setting sun as a rapidly diminishing gloom. We'd like to be back next year, though.

Le Debut: mugs start the annual Chateau d'If swim, 5km from the legendary prison which held, at various times over the centuries, the Count of Monte Cristo and Neddy Seagoon, into Marseilles. This year, three of our own mugs took part. Click here for French TV news coverage of the swim.

Le peloton s'étend dehors: the peloton stretches out. A few straight arms there, upright heads ...

And our three mugs: Denise Elder, the lovely Cecily Black, and General(ly) Grumpy, Scott Crawford. You can catch up with Grumpy's Blog and see more pics by clicking here. Denise won her division, we understand. Well done, yourselves!

Some of you by now will have heard that Mrs Sparkle had an accident just over a year ago and, for the past 12 months, she's been getting around the place with a decidedly weird gait. She fell out of her roof, you see.

She was banged about pretty badly and, a week later, after returning home to supervise her house move, from a wheelchair - which didn't stop her in the slightest from barking instructions to sweating, panting boyfriends - she went back into hospital for a 4 1/2 operation to attempt to fix it up.

Trooper that Mrs Sparkle is, she didn't let it keep her away from the things she loves, apart from oceanswims.com. And it hasn't hurt her swimming so much. She has almost as much vertical flex in her phenomenally hyperextensible feet, although she can't kick as hard with the affected left one. Lateral extension is another matter entirely. And it has made her walking dead dodgy, indeed.

The reason, apart from the original injury, was that the sawbones pumped her full of lead, or titanium, rather, to pull back together the ten shattered fragments of her left heel bone, which people with medical certificates call the calcanius. Why they should bring maths into this, well, we don't know, but there you go. A plate and 14 screws, they bunged into her. $5,000 worth, which caused all sorts of consternation when she passes through the security entrances at court complexes, but registered not a jot when she passed through security at Sydney International Airport. No wonder the gait was dodgy, and no wonder it affected her entries and exits from the water at ocean swims last season.

Just recently, Mrs Sparkle went back to hospital to have the plate and 14 screws removed. She was a little apprehensive about this and, for several days before we drove her over to the hospital, she was very difficult to get along with. One reason for this was that she'd discovered the snooze doc allotted to her operation was a bloke whom, some 13 years ago, had treated The Ice Princess with grommets and The Ice Princess, aged 3 at the time, took exception to him placing an anaesthetic mask with strawberry essence soaked into it, over her face. So she hauled off and smacked him in the kisser. The Ice Princess smacked him in the kisser, that is, not Mrs Sparkle, who's far too demure for that.

Anyway, she fessed up with that bit of a tale right at the outset, getting it off her chest, and the snooze doc didn't seem to mind at all. He hadn't remembered, as a matter of fact. Funny, that. Mrs Sparkle had felt, for sure, he'd have her and The Ice Princess's names etched into leaden bullets tucked away in his breast pocket always, just in case he ever ran across them again.

The story gets better, though. The $5,000 worth of titanium in her foot was in the form of a plate bent every which way with screws securing the plate to the heel fragments, in all kinds of directions. It was a schemozzle, according to the x-rays. Ever since she had them inserted, Mrs Sparkle's left foot has been almost 50 per cent wider and rock hard along it's western edge. She doesn't carry a lot of flesh on her feet, the sawbones remarked, so the rich metal inlays stood out all the more.

What he discovered when he opened her up this time, however, was that she'd broken the plate. It was in two pieces inside her foot. No wonder it was a bit sore in the evenings and when the weather turned cool. And we thought she was just whingeing.

They're a bit of a badge of honour, now. Or badges of honour. She posed very proudly with them for the oceanswims.com -on-the-spot photo, with our Brownie Starflash, in a woollen jumper, this time.

At right, you can see where the plate has broken, and where it fits together. The sawbones reckoned it was from Mrs Sparkle constantly wiggling her heel up and down, side to side, trying to get her foot to work properly again. She was doing this from the day she came out of hospital. Maybe it was made worse by all the fin work we had her doing at Squad on Fin Fridays. "I must be pretty strong, don't you think, oceanswims.com," said Mrs Sparkle to us, lolling on her bed back home again less than 24 hours after the operation. "Do you think Wonder Woman could have broken that plate like I did? ... Or Xena, Warrior Woman ? ... Or Super Woman? ...

We sighed. "No, dear ... we reckon you're pretty strong, you are." We humoured her. She was a patient, after all, so we should be patient, too. "Do you think I should get a name, too, oceanswims.com?" She whimpered this out. The block on her left foot was wearing off. The drain hole, vacated by the drain itself, was weeping. The dressing was starting to fill with blood. "How about ..." we ventured, "Wonder Sparkle? ... Or Sparkle Arkle? ..." She didn't think we were taking this seriously.

She is one tough gal, but. Barely a whimper the whole time, and never loses her head in a crisis. Except when The Ice Princess gives her lip. Mrs Sparkle is one person we'd have beside us any time in an hour of need. Take a geek at all that hardware above. How would you go walking around for a year with that lot stuck in your heel. Would you whinge? We would.

Have a look at the break and the plate. The two bits would have been going in different directions most of the time. Do you reckon that might have hurt inside that petite, hyperextensible little foot? She's a trooper, isn't she!

The doctor reckons he'll have her running in no time, fast. Which would be pretty remarkable, since she couldn't run before.

It's January, and the cricket is on, which means the Bardoel boys will be visiting Sydney.

oceanswims.com and his queen, Mrs Sparkle, visited the Icebergs pool at Bondi on January 3 to catch up with our cobbers, Ed and Mary Lou Malphus, in and on the town from LA. In 2003, we swam the PT 109 swim in the Solomon Islands with Ed and Mary Lou. We were telling them about the last time we visited the Icebergs, two years earlier. That was to meet our buddies, the Bardoel boys, Alby and Peter, who come up from Melbourne every now and again to bask in the glamour of Sydney.

Alby and Peter are large figures in ocean swimming in Victoria, physically and metaphorically. They've swum the English Channel, and they're enormous supporters of other long distance swimmers. They're vociferous in their advocacy of nude swimming (sans wetties), which is a minority pursuit in Victoria.

It was a beautiful day at the 'Bergs. Magnificent, clear, baby blue sky, gentle offshore breeze holding up a respectable nor'-east swell, which crashed over the corner of the baths spectacularly, as if daring mug swimmers to get in there. As we leant over the railing looking down on this glorious scene, a giant of a man emerged from the remnant white water beside the baths, up the stairs used by swimmers to enter and leave the water for point-to-point swims at Bondi. "That looks like Alby Bardoel," said Mrs Sparkle, incredulously, for it would have been too great a coincidence - not to mention unheard of - for Alby to be visiting Sydney, visiting the Bergs, just at the first time in two years that we'd been there. Particularly when he hadn't told us he was coming. "Naahh, can't be," she dismissed the fantasy. "That fellow's too big for Alby". She wasn't referring to height, for Alby has always been a giant of a man, inversely proportionate to his outer bravado. "That one's been in a good paddock," she said.

But as we looked at the bloke, in his tiny Icebergs cossies, his gestures and mannerisms, his clear self-effacement as he chatted with the poolie, little bits seemed to add up, the jigsaw falling together. Indeed, it was Alby Bardoel, who'd decided, he told us later, on the spur of the moment two days earlier to make a lightning visit to Sydney, for the cricket as much as anything.

What a pleasure it was to catch up with him. For the Bardoel boys, along with some of their cobbers in Victoria, are some of our favourite people in ocean swimming.

Lucky we had the oceanswims.com Brownie-Starflash-in-a-plastic-bag, albeit this time out of the plastic bag, for we were able to capture Alby, preparing to re-enter the water off the Bergs, which is, we gather, one of his favourite places. The swell wasn't huge, but it reared spectacularly off the edge of the pool, like a posing cobra, before crashing harmlessly between the lane ropes, more show than grunt. But powerful show, just the same.

The lens can play tricks, especially when combined with a photo editing tool on the computer. Look at it above, Alby standing alone against the sea, Hemingway-like. Then look at it below. Still a beautiful image, but in its proper context.