Where there’s a will there’s a wave

ONE of the current activities showing a huge wave of interest recently on the South Wales coast is cold water bathing in the sea.

Cheaper than splashing out on a water bed, large groups of people in Carmarthenshire have been have been lemming it down to the sea where they immerse themselves in a therapeutic maelstrom of exhilaration and euphoria, allegedly.

Ninety-five-year-old Willy Jumping goes with the flow every week and said, with a dry sense of humour, that it enhances his libido and will give him five more years in his care home.

As they say, where there’s a will there’s a wave. But as someone who has that sinking feeling whenever I get out of my depth in the bath the attraction of cold water sea bathing is limited.

It was the Victorians’ belief in the benefits of sea bathing that kick-started its popularity, yet the experience was different to say the least.

The sexes bathed separately and modesty was often protected by the bathing machine, a wooden hut on wheels in which the person would change, be wheeled down to the sea and ejected from one end.

However, their belief in the medical value of sea bathing is validated by science which suggests that the benefits include: boosting the immune system and the white blood cell count; improving circulation flushing veins, arteries, and capillaries; increasing oestrogen and testosterone production; burning calories; reducing stress; camaraderie in facing a challenge.

Last week Natural Resources Wales released the most recent results of their biannual testing of the water around the Welsh coast and the two Carmarthenshire bathing hotspots – Pembrey and Pendine – retained their ‘excellent’ status.

However, bearing in mind the devastation of the cockle industry in the past in the Loughor estuary, the continued reporting of raw sewage spills in the area and the many visual observations by Natural Resources Wales of trace amounts of ‘sewage debris’ even in the ‘excellent’ waters of Pembrey, I might well stay within the confines of my bath.

The only thing that is likely to flow past there is my plastic duck.