The Sticks

The remnants of the ruined pier at Balloch are what we refer to as the sticks. Every swim starts and ends with the group meeting at the far end to work out routes, who is swimming with who and when the wetsuits get ditched at the end of a swim the plan is always to swim to the sticks and back. Despite everyone knowing this, every time one of us describes a swim we start by saying we went to the sticks. I think the sticks are the spiritual home of the Loch Lomond Loonies.

This is how the loch looked a couple of minutes before 6am this morning while the other 10 swimmers were still messing about in the car park. I like the ethereal look of this, straight out of the camera, that you can hardly tell where water ends and sky begins. A short time later the light was much brighter and the effect was lost.

It was a marvellous swim. No wetsuit (no midges this time, fortunately) and we headed from the sticks to Cameron House stopping off at a couple of the buoys on the way before swimming straight back to the sticks. (See, I couldn't help myself.)

As Heather would say, my chi is full up. Roll on Friday.