A.n The city of Essex is experiencing an explosion in the popularity of cold water swimming. One Facebook page for people wanting to swim in Leigh-on-Sea, launched in mid-October, reached nearly 650 members within two months as numbers moved through gray 2. Swimmers say that working from home has given people more time to enjoy simple pleasures and the sea allows a minute to keep a step away from normal life in times of stress. definitely.
Jenny Bier, 45, project manager, is a defender of the Leigh-on-Sea branch of the Bluetits – an informal swimming movement began in Pembrokeshire in 2014, with more than 6,000 members worldwide. She first tried cold water swimming in September this year, stepping over the shiny sands and into the Firth of Thames. ‘I went into my thighs and I thought,’ That’s awful. ‘ He is deeply hurt, ”she said. “I found out again. And then I gave a speech to myself and I went back inside and it was just glorious.
“A boat had just come in with a load of cock or fish or something and the peak told me, ‘You have to be totally sane. ‘It was raining at the time. He said: ‘What are you doing, are you okay? ‘I was like,’ This is the best thing ever! ‘ I was so glad I did it, but the first one wasn’t easy. I have tried to go in maybe three or four times a week since then. “
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Summit, Thorpe Bay; above, Chalkwell beach, Southend-on-Sea.
Her friend Lisa Monger, 44, who was also from Leigh-on-Sea, had also tried cold water swimming and heard about the Bluetits as there is a branch in Falmouth in Cornwall, where the her daughter to university. Monger, a fitness coach, decided to start a branch of the Bluetits (so named because “it’s really funny and it’s cold”) with Bier.
While the group offers general advice and a way to connect members, there are no fees, no formal training, and people choose to swim whenever they like. Scores of swimwear and dippers – some in bikinis or swim shorts, others in wet suits with hats, boots and gloves – can now be seen in the tidal waters of the Essex riviera. They range in age from child to woman in her 70s, and include tax advisors, accountants, paramedics, police and people who work in theater, Monger said.
Monger said: “This year we have brought back non-essential material and made people appreciate the simple things. That’s what has attracted people to it, I think.
“You may be feeling stressed and overwhelmed and it’s something that bothers you and washes away stress and makes you forget everything else because you’re so focused right now, feeling everything as you walk into the water. Feeling how cold it is. Other times I go there wanting the company and laughing and chatting with other people who are on the beach. ”
She said working from home had taken London’s passengers “perhaps three hours back each day” and helped relieve participants of childcare responsibilities.
She said she saw as many as 50 people in the water at 7am. “The ones that surprise me when it’s 11am, and people would usually work, and of course people say, ‘You know what – I’m going to have my lunch when the tide is out. ‘”
The group is for men and women (the men are called Bluebells) and has become a community. Bier said she can go to the beach by herself without making any plans and there are usually between five and 15 more swims. “It’s been a wonderful way to connect with people at a very strange time,” she said, and it’s been so popular that you can’t buy wet clothes or gloves or anything. for love or money now ”. Being in the water is “a kind of step away from normal life”, she said.
“As soon as I get into the water, everything outside the water is completely unbearable for those 10 or 15 minutes, and that feels beautiful,” Monger said. . “It’s just glorious. People are just literally throwing their clothes off. They have so much wanted to get into the water, they are practically running down the beach. ”
Leanne Mariage, 46, a former cold water swimmer, has been taking advice from another organization – Southend Seals – since completing a two-hour water safety course. Mariage, who works as a tutor, swam every day in lockdown 2. “There was nothing else to do,” she said. “It was just a habit and a purpose.
“You have to focus on getting into really cold water. Your brain goes somewhere else, you feel somewhere different, in the sea you feel a little separated from the world and connected to nature. It’s so cold it’s lively. It makes you feel alive. ”
“People walk on and take pictures or look at you and think you’re crazy,” Mariage said. “But it’s not hard and it’s great fun. ”