On Sunday I picked up Judith on the way to meet Nina in Strathblane before she drove us all up to Balamaha. We met at around 730am at Strathblane, and were at Balmaha for 8am.

We went down to the pier to scope it out a bit; then parked in the overflow car park, got our wetsuits on ready to swim and walked the short walk back to the pier.

We ended up being in the water around 840am, and the water was nice and calm and not very cold at all – I might even say it was warm! My turtle thermometer needs a new battery and it wasn’t working at the start, but as we were in our way it measured 21 and 22’C! Pretty warm!

I showed Nina a safe entry off the pier…sitting on the edge, facing out, you out both hands to one side of where you’re sitting, then put all your weight ok your hands and turn yourself around so that you’re facing the edge and slip in. Easy peasy. Judith used the steps, but I wanted to just dip in and get wet / used to it.

The three of us swim at quite a similar pace and I feel a very comforting level of confidence when I’m swimming with Judith and Nina. They’re very experienced swimmers and open water swimmers (who are very h Ie too), and it was nice to be out with them again.

They’re both very good at sighting too – something I could do better at – so when I swim next to them I can sort of leave them to it and not worry too much about going off course.

We swam for about a km, before stopping for a breather. I fixed my goggles and we had a brief chat, taking in the wonderful scenery. The water was so calm and everything was so beautiful.

We set off again and before we knew it we were around the other side of the island and near a jetty with boats. We stopped and had a longer chat… Some stories from me, and good chat from them. And I was still able to stay warm.

Looking out we saw Ben Lomond and Conic Hill, and a few boats starting to show themselves for us to be aware of. It’s mad the ripple and waves a boat can make on an otherwise calm and serene Loch.

We started off again, trying to swim out of the shallows, and before we knew it we were over 2km… but JW as starting to lose count of the distance as I was having such a good time. We had a third rest where I told another story… and we laughed… then before we knew it we were about 200m from being back where we started.

Crossing back over to where we got in, we had to be careful around some passing boats.. then after 3,200m we got out, and wandered the short distance back to the car.

We spent about 2 hours in the water and about 1 hour 10 swimming.

Afterwards I got changed and warm and had a rego shake and some water, before heading home and getting a shower and a wander around the west end and some lunch (and a cool strawberry tart) at the Broken Clock Cafe. A nice wee Sunday.

I’m now a week out from the 3km swim event in Loch Tay, and 3 weeks out from the 5km swim event in Loch Lomond from Lomond Shores… before another 5km event at Loch Morlich in the middle of September. I’m looking forward to all of them, but I may need a wee rest after all this swimming (lucky we’ve booked a holiday at long last).

Oh and in other news, I’ve added some pannier bars and bags onto my bike so I can use it to commute to work when I need it. A hybrid bike with aero bars and pannier bags… it’s doesn’t quite know what it is! 😂 we’ll see how I get on with that. A 35 minute walk commute should take about 10-15 mins.

It was great to be swimming with Nina and Judith again and I hope we get out some more this year for more fun and swims and chats. Nina is doing Loch Tay next week as well, so I’ll hopefully see her there too.