Even the jellyfish avoided the orange-headed shoal

Swimmer, Zabdi Keen, was the recipient of the Ali Bodie memorial plate at the Lamlash Spash and here gives us her personal account of the event.

I rode over on the Holy Isle ferry apprehensively eyeing up the route back, the water looked perfect and calm. Ferry captain, Jim, handed me the strong mints and told me what bets he was making on how long it would take me to return.

Rinsed

Lots of small boats carrying the 40-odd people arrived at the Holy Isle jetty where we all stood. I rinsed my goggles nervously next to a jellyfish before Mike Mellor said: ‘Everyone in the water’ and we dropped in either side, it seemed a bit rude to Holy Isle to come this close and not even set foot on the island, I will need to come back soon. My stomach fluttered with excitement.

Mike told us that faster swimmers should head off first, follow the yacht, and it will lead you to Lamlash and with this, we all started swimming. I think the other creatures in the sea would be scared at the sight of this shoal of orange-headed neoprene-skinned humans that made the water froth and bubble.

After a while of swimming following the mast of the yacht, I looked back. Holy Isle looked just as near, and I did that three times before it seemed to change in size and I felt that I was getting somewhere. There was a lot of plankton in the water and it felt like I was swimming in primordial soup. The jellyfish lurked around, but they seemed to be deeper and didn’t get in my way, I think they were avoiding us!

The thing I found when swimming with others was that when I tried really hard, I went slower, I might have a bad kicking technique. To go faster, I needed to do less, just lay on the water, stop kicking, point my toes, relax my shoulders and give powerful pulls through the water and glide in between. It’s all about getting the breathing right. It worked, I pulled away again and started to creep up on a pair of feet ahead of me. Three of us started to converge again after being well spread out which meant that I was swimming in frothy water. I decided I would rather be in front so I zig-zagged behind, then choose a side and slowly pulled ahead.

Very happy

I made it to the pier in 58 minutes and came 26th. I was very happy as I had no idea how long I would take, but I thought it would be more than an hour. As I came out of the water my son, Kieran, greeted me with the words: ‘Can we go for a swim now mum?’ my answer was: ‘Yes, you can!’

When the presentation came I thought the trophy would be handed to the winner, but I was shocked and delighted when it was given to me. I received the Ali Bodie memorial prize which is awarded to the swimmer who has shown the most courage and determination. A rare honour indeed.

Initially when I had started training in the sea, I had worn a thick old wetsuit and thought I wouldn’t be able to do the splash. The Arran swimmers, Ann, Heather and Mike, had persuaded me to get a thin neoprene wetsuit designed for swimming which made all the difference. Open sea swimming has been much more fun and more challenging than swimming in a pool.

It just shows what training can do. So, if you have driven past the Lamlash Splash and have seen the swimmers coming out the water and thought, I can never do that – well you can if you want to. The only thing stopping you is you. Get swimming!