More birds and bathing around Dublin Bay

Proud to say that for the first time I've completed year-round bathing from the Forty-Foot, Sandycove, Seapoint and Coliemore Harbour, most of it with my stalwart daily-dipping friend Catherine. I reported on the first, exhilarating taking the plunge a year after my op, and finding the stoma could withstand it, here. One of the February swims was the quickest in-and-out, and hardest because of grey skies and blasting winds.  

But if the sun shines, even when it's freezing, the after-change is delightful so long as you've got your back to one of the white walls in full bright light. Here's Catherine after one such swim. 

And of course sea socks and gloves, as recommended to me way back by the Menopausal Mermaids of Pittenweem, Fife, are essential. But even stormy October days can look splendid on the walk from Dun Laoghaire to Sandycove

and Seapoint is always an option if it looks too choppy at the Forty Foot (and, as on this occasion, Sandycove).

North Bull Island comes into its own when the waders and other seabirds are overwintering. 

Plentiful sanderlings were skeetering along the water's edge on this occasion.

Little Egrets are always numerous, but this one looked especially fine while crossing the wooden bridge

 and on a walk where the haunting cries of the curlews could be heard all the way from Clontarf Junction to the island, I managed to close in on one here.

It's usually when crossing over the other bridge a couple of miles further up that you see the waders en masse, especially striking at sunset.

 

Biggest surprise was to get off the DART at Booterstown, right by the small bird reserve there, and find a huge congregation of wigeon

and while gulls seemed fearless to crash in on their number, waders like greenshanks and even redshanks gathered around the edge.

Among visitors came Debbie and Derek from Berlin. I took them on the perfect walk, from Dalkey Station to Coliemore Harbour and Sorrento Point and back. 

and my swim in the harbour - I learnt my lesson after the near-drowning experience never to go beyond the walls - started the process whereby they both ended up taking the plunge at Sandycove.

 With Debbie and Seamus I discovered for the first time the wonders of the South Wall walk.

and was again astonished by the number of waders. Twitchers/birders told me this was the lowest tide of the year, hence the multitudes. 

The tide had turned and was sweeping in by the time we turned back from the lighthouse at the end of the wall. 

A couple of swims later, in early April, I was surprised to be hailed by someone while I was heading to the steps at the Forty Foot, having passed the heron on one of the rocks. 

It turned out that select members of the Irish Baroque Orchestra, admin and players, were down there for a dip between final rehearsal and that evening's riveting performance of Bach's St Matthew Passion. 

The walk from Sandcycover to Dun Laoghaire that day was an especially enriching one, all nature enjoying the spring sun. Two terns on a rock, back early for the summer

and two of the local seals (I've seen many more since).

 Further along, lads diving and jumping by the Roger Casement statue (I've yet to swim from there)

 On another beautiful day, Howth distant below fabulous cirrus and cumulus clouds, 

we swam from Seapoint

 we encountered not only Ireland's Labour leader, Ivana Bacik, from a distance, but also that marvellous actor/director/comedian/writer Liam Hourican with his girlfriend Lara.

It was here that I learned he was directing 'Telemachus', a dramatisation of the opening chapter of Ulysses, in and around the Martello Tower in the week before Bloomsday. The outcome of that and other gems you can read about here.

Two more walks with birds along the way to conclude for now. Back to North Bull Island with dramatic clouds threatening rain that never happened. Poolbeg Towers from the dunes 

and pansies below. 

Little egret in the saltmarsh

and ferry in the distance crossing back over the second bridge

 Good to see a fair few shelducks among the redshanks and black-tailed godwits

 Hadn't been along the Howth cliff walk for ages. It didn't disappoint.

.

and even on the route up, a wren was blithely singing at very close quarters

 but of course the real joy was to be found on the cliff faces 

 and what a joy to move parallel with a flotilla of razorbills and guillemots.

I could go on - May and June yielded more gems - but it's hot sitting here even with the fan on, so enough sea pictures already. Back on Tuesday. 

'Another good one': more bathing in Dublin Bay

The quoted remark was made by Dublin's oldest bather - as far as anyone knew - after every daily dip up to his death at the age of 93. I heard it from two senior folk while changing for a swim in Sandycove. One of the beauties of these swimming locations is the friendliness and ease all around, and the fact that you meet all ages, sizes, shapes...a far cry from the time when the Forty Foot was men-only (nude bathing early in the morning), though the jumping from the rocks remains the same.

This was the Dublin fortnight in which I found the value of the immersion reaching an almost metaphysical level. It was a big thing for me since, apart from a trial run in the Estonia Resort Hotel's spa back in July, I hadn't really taken the plunge since the consequences of my big op a year ago: namely could I, should I, swim with a stoma? Reassurances didn't banish nagging doubts. And so on my first day back at the Forty Foot, trunks hoiked up over the bag, I stayed in very cold water for a short time, anxious about the aftermath though having already enjoyed the social scene before immersion.

But it was fine: no change needed (though I'd brought supplies), and time for a snack and a coffee just up the hill at an old furniture salesroom turned into a wacky cafe. 

It was important that I did this with my wonderful bathing pal in Dublin, Catherine Bunyan, a convert to daily sea swimming, and also with one of our recent guests, dear friend Ashley from Australia (on the left in the selfie she took above). Not every visitor would want to indulge in so-called 'wild swimming' - the wild bit about it, I'd say, would be the sea temperature - but both Ashley and our next arrival, Cally, were delighted to do so. Both swam around for longer than I did. 

The options at Sandycove are the Forty Foot itself - still no clarity on the naming, since the Fortieth Foot Brigade turns out NOT to have been stationed at the Martello Tower here, though the rumour may have stuck - or, if the sea is too turbulent, in the sheltered bay, where the white wall is lovely to lean against in full sun. Swim Two was another good one at the Forty Foot

and in fact Sandycove was more blustery, with a wind from the west. 

Do look at the names given to the jellyfish on the noticeboard. We actually met a friend of Catherine's here who'd been stung the previous week, but was happy to get back in the water.

The sun didn't properly materialise until my big day out with Cally (swimming below at a highish tide when the colour of the water shows that Joyce's 'snot-green' wasn't necessarily a negative).

We repeated part of the route on which I'd taken Ashley, walking from Dalkey Station to Coliemore Harbour, scene of my near-fatal swim out into the straits. Here are shots from two days - one blustery and sea-swelly but exhilarating, with seals swimming and fish to be caught, the other on a golden Saturday).

Then up to the panorama in Sorrento Point (wider view taken by Cally - you'd best click to enlarge),

in this case back round down Sorrento Road to catch the lobster festival in town (though not to eat there, since 3pm lunch called at the fabulous Andhra Bhavan), 

then on to Sandycove for the swim, enhanced by the pleasant company of two turnstones,

 and back to Dun Laoghaire for the DART back into town. That was livelier on the previous Saturday, when a zumba class taking place where the much-missed sea baths used to be enlivened the scene. Casement's statue (another bathing-place) beyond.

Sadly our excursion south to the coastal cottage of mutual friends Rosanna and Anthony found the sea too rough. But paddling proved good enough, especially on this lovely, deserted bay which may be sandy one year and shingly the next.

My last discovery has embedded the top image deep in my heart. Seapoint is closest, from home in central Dublin via the DART, and as time was limited I used the train - Catherine so often drives - to enjoy two last swims with her. 

The first day was grey but with fascinating lights, especially looking over to the Poolbeg Towers with cormorant-surmounted rocks (a small group of terns were further along),

 the second a dream late afternoon after a morning of rain. 

At last it was possible to swim with the sun on one's face, and to walk back to Seapoint DART station looking at the sun on the rocks and Howth magical behind. 

It's given rise to so many images, not just in the first chapter of Ulysses but also in another Irish masterpiece, Jamie O'Neill's At Swim, Two Boys. I haven't finished it yet; when I do, I hope I'll return to enlarge on its infinite richness here.