South City Do It Again!!!!

This weekend saw round 2 of the State Ocean Swim Series, the Bay of Islands Classic, which is a 3.3 km swim from Russell to Paihia. This is also the longest swim of the series and is the only one that is more than 3 km.

The weather looked fairly ideal at breakfast time but as swimmers boarded the ferry to cross to Russell the wind started to pick up and faces started to fall. On Russell village green swimmers started putting on their wetsuits if they hadn't already done so and it was not a moment too soon as the rain started to come down and the marker buoys on the course began to have a mind of their own. The waiting crowd began to feel a little anxious over being able to sight the course and threatened to storm the beach (slight exaggeration) but Scott Rice took control with a gentle 'shush' and then it was down to the start line. Right on cue the weather cleared just in time for the start hooter. In spite of the earlier squalls the weather remained calm throughout the swim and the water was only mildly choppy - very good swimming conditions indeed. The sun even came out in time for the finish.

Predictably, South City Masters covered themselves in glory with 4 swimmers on the podium - Dawn and Avy both won their divisions (again!) and Liz and Pat came second in theirs. A big shout out to the 4 of them - doing the club, and themselves, proud. Out of the 12 swimmers that went to Paihia, 10 members finished in the top 10 of their age division, an amazing result.

A mention should also be made that Richard and Rachel both made the podium in their age groups in spite of being only in togs. Unsurprisingly, they both won their respective non-wetsuit divisions.