Not only are Molonglo Water Dragons keen swimmers, at prose they are also talented!
Broulee Classic 2016 A 1400m swim from Broulee Island to South Broulee Beach
The day dawned grey and foreboding.
Our intrepid Molonglo Water Dragons band assembled resolutely on the frigid shore of Broulee beach.
The moment was nigh.
Members of the band had descended the mountains in the pre dawn, others had spent an anxious night tossing and turning on a foreign bed, a thin mattress of straw. For one of the hardy group a mere palliasse in the cellar of a hovel in the hamlet of Malua Bay.
They had steeled their mettle to the the rigours ahead. They were ready, months of blood, hardship, fatigue, dedication, commitment and pain were about to be rewarded. The anticipated day had arrived.
We had assembled to do battle with ourselves, to strive, to overcome the elements, to pit ourselves against a remorseless mile of cold ocean. 18 degrees was the cry!
There is a tide in the affairs of men.
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the swims of their life
Is bound in the shallows and in the miseries.
On such a full sea we are now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.
At the clubhouse we signed away our rights and trudged stoically, slump shouldered and with resignation toward the raised high gun.
Shivering in the shallows we heard the dire warnings and took them in.
No monsters of the deep this day, jellyfish, sharks, krakens, icthyosaurs all banished.
In waves of young then old, we were off. Smoothly with confidence we struck out, then all too soon we were fighting, fighting ourselves to reach the accursed yellow buoys, would they never be here? They were there, just in front, then like wraiths, nymphs or water sprites they would fade and appear just as far as once they were, further off seemingly with every stroke. Desperate prayers implored them to be there with the next head raised glance.
Will power was tested and did not prove wanting, at last the final buoy was rounded, we turned for home, our spirits lifted, the end was in sight, the red arch of the finish line was within our grasp, we gave our utmost, our driven bodies would make this final effort, shoulders, lungs, and hearts screamed for relief and an end.
Terra firma, glorious land, the ordeal was nearly over, a brief gasping dash and a wobbly collapse over the line. An angel to greet us with a kind word and a (funny tasting, plastic) cup of water which soothed the frenzied brow and replenished the wasted body said we’d made it. Relief blessed relief. What terrors we had conquered what mountains we had climbed.
Now for the stories the feats of derring do and the minutiae of analysing every terrific inch.
Hence forth we are to be known as MMWD! The Mighty Molonglo Water Dragons..
A grand day was had by all at the Broulee Ocean Swim Classic. Contestants were Tim Booth, Alison Compston, Debbie Newton, Jacinta Tonner and Jane Rotgansfrom. All were from Queanbeyan and MMWD’s Canberra branches. We all did very well.
Tim Booth