Sisters Are Doing It For Themselves.....

The State Ocean Swim Series kicked off yesterday with perfect conditions for the 10th anniversary of the 2.9km Harbour Crossing. The sun shone, the wind stayed down and the water was warm and flat as a pancake. How much better can it get? Quite a lot! Roving Reporter was there to watch (from the middle of the pack, with binoculars) as ocean swimming divas Dawn and Avy took line honours in their age groups.

This was no mean feat; nearly 1600 swimmers signed up to swim across the harbour and only 100 of them chickened out, so there were around 1500 people splashing, kicking, guggling, swiping and biting. Well, the biting may be total fiction, and possibly the swiping and perhaps guggling is just a word I made up to describe being swum over but there sure was a lot of splashing going on.

Out of the 1500 Dawn was 125th overall (27th woman) and Avy was 248th overall (59th woman).

Sisters are doing it for themselves,

standing on their own 2 feet, ringing on their own bells

South City put up 15 swimmers this year,  a record number and representative of around 25% of club membership, proving how popular ocean swimming has become. It seems that 7 and 9 are lucky numbers for South City with 6 swimmers achieving either 7th or 9th placing in their age group. 10 Of the club's swimmers finished in the top 25% of overall which also confirms that South City are as strong in the ocean as in the pool. Another fun fact - we have a lot of Dave's.

To top it off a number of our swimmers achieved unprecedented improvements over last season's times: David (what is his secret?) Spencer slashed his time by a whopping 10 minutes (not a typo!); Anne Smith wiped 9 minutes off her time; Dave Walker had a big smile with 7 minutes off last year's time and Liz Hayes improved by 5 minutes. Wow!

Here are the results in order of finishing time:
Giles Walker 45.36
Dave Donaldson 46.22
Mike Harrison 46.39
Dawn Walker 46.50 - 1st in age group
Dave Graham 48.14
Grant Sykes 48.31
Avy Judelson 50.19 - 1st in age group
Deryn McGregor 51.36
Vince Kirrane 52.02
Liz Hayes 52.57
Dave Spencer 55.25
Dave Walker 55.58
Pat Castles 57.01
Anne Smith 1.11.06
Tania Allan 1.25.45

Apologies if I've left anyone out. Big ups to everyone involved!