Come on in, the water’s… okay we’re not gonna lie, it’s freezing

A GROUP OF SIX EXTREME OPEN-WATER SWIMMERS ARE PIONEERING NEW SWIM ROUTES AROUND THE ICY, TOOTHY AND OFTEN BOISTEROUS WATERS OF THE CAPE PENINSULA

All it takes is one WhatsApp message, and the hard-as-girders swim group, the Fussers, are there (and if theyʼre not there, then theyʼre not Fussers and they wonʼt be invited back). Goggled up. Ready to swim in the same water that extreme, polar ice swimmer Lewis Pugh trains in when he feels the need to pull up his socks.

But why are they called the Fussers? Because they donʼt fuss. Not about sharks, routes, swells, jellies, chafe, seals, numb toes or even wetsuits. And theyʼre riding the current wave of worldwide fascination with “wild” swimming, because of the many reported health benefits of cold-water immersion. And something more intangible, too.

Dave, No-Show Roy, Sammy-J, JHog, Pete and Ropes – two IT fundis, a change management specialist for a nationwide retailer, a doctor, a structural engineer and a farm rep. A right ordinary bunch of Capetonians. The very rediscovery of ordinary. You sense thereʼs an inner couch potato fighting to get out.

Iʼve blagged an invitation. Missing an invitation is deleteriously bad etiquette. Roy is on his last warning. Theyʼve accepted, and I admit it, Iʼm a wee bit fussing inside. Somehow, I manage to end up at the front of the group, trying to stride nonchalantly into the 11°C water at Beta Bay, just down from Bakoven. I sense the Fussers watching me avidly, scenting blood. The sun is about to set, throwing a pink flush over the Aston-Martin curves of the 12 Apostles. Thereʼs a solid black wall of fog looming on the horizon. The swell is rough, blotting out the world on every other breath. Iʼve done one Robben Island swim and I maintain a respectable 12km a week at swim squad, but these chaps are next-level.

Samanthaʼs the slowest at 1min 38sec/100m, which is nearing a flat-out sprint for most mortals. Dave sits comfortably at 1.28. They all have a couple of Robben Islands, et al, under their caps.

Daveʼs the bus driver, to borrow a concept used by his erstwhile coach, Warren Fialkov. He picks the destination and swims at the front of the group. He says heʼs a chilled organiser, a bit of a Vespa enthusiast, really, with an eye for the small detail, works in data. JHog takes me aside to warn me thatʼs ʻnonsense on stiltsʼ. Daveʼs actually a tyrannical Alpha male, a cantankerous Loki figure, Puck of the

Peninsula, if you will. But a saint, all the same, smiling beatifically through the spume and the fret.

Oh, and that Iʼm really best-off swimming on the open-sea side of him. Just in case he swims me into a rock, say, or a cave or the whirlpool streaming around a whaleʼs flukes. Anyway, JHog is the sweep, hanging at the back of the pack making sure that no one, for example an errant, shivering journalist, gets lost or sinks.

Itʼs their sense of perspective that is so jaw-droppingly extraordinary. Because these guys swim in some seriously cold, remote, virgin spots around the Cape Peninsula. Places that even successful Robben Island swimmers would shuffle their heels at. Places like that turquoise Mordor under Chapmanʼs Peak Drive. Or the ominous indigo curve by the Bos 400 wreck where itʼs always 10 degrees, in the Karbonkelberg peakʼs shadow, where the waves bounce off the cliffs back onto you, behind the Sentinel at Hout Bay.

Or the near spiritually sublime 5km stretch between Smitswinkel Bay and Millers Point, where My Octopus Teacher was filmed, and Judas Point, and the pristine Hoek van Bobbejaan, some 10km before Cape Point, and Buffels Bay, all of which require a shaggy skipper in a pukka rubber duck just to get near.

To put it in laymanʼs perspective, UN Patron of the Oceans Lewis Pugh trains in the same spots when itʼs time for a bit of mental and physical toughening-up before a glacier swim. English Channel hopefuls come to train here to force the grit deep within their shoulders, and their souls, too.

Every Friday afternoon, local skipper and weather guru Derrick Frazer takes Lewis for a cold-water training swim in different places around the Cape Peninsula, in order to help him acclimatise to unfamiliar water.

Lewis says that thereʼs a tendency to focus on the traditional swims, like Robben Island or Cape Point or across False Bay, ʻbut there are all these other places where you can do absolutely gorgeous, shorter swims. I come from Plymouth where Sir Francis Drake set sail to become the first Englishman to circumnavigate the world. He said the Cape of Good Hope was the “fairest cape in the whole circumference of the Earth”. And he wasnʼt wrong.

ʻI did the Bos 400 wreck swim at Hout Bay. It was 10 degrees, the waves were rough, whacking off the cliffs and rebounding, the water was dark. There

were seals popping up everywhere and I tell you, it was challenging. I was uncomfortable, but it pushes me to be a better swimmer.ʼ

Thatʼs Lewis for you. The Fussers do it on a Saturday morning for the craic, and of course the intense post-swim high. At the moment, theyʼre all raving about their recent encounter with a southern right mum and her calf, just off the Sea Point Pavilion pool. The calf surfaced right next to the group. For a split second, everyone thought Dave was on its back. Tail high in the air above him. Then the mother glided protectively between Dave and the calf, and Cetacea left the building.

Then thereʼs the yawning cave just past Cape Point. Imagine Lord of the Rings and Jamaica Inn had a love child which grew up to be a grotto. If you were doing the official Cape Point swim and you breathed to the right, youʼd never even know it was there. But Sammy-J says she swam inside the other day. She still gets goosebumps. ʻYou could hear the waves hitting the back of the cave, and there was a big echo, which may also have been the sound of my heart beating outside my chest. There was quite a bit of swell moving in the cave and then pushing back out. Not for the faint of heart!ʼ

The Fussers gravitated towards each other in 2018 through swim squad and sea swims, and lo, the WhatsApp group appeared, rapidly evolving into a regular morning adventure swim. News travelled like wildfire. Everyone wanted in; few got the chance.

Then came lockdowns and beach closures. And the ante was really upped.

Derrick spotted a legal loophole and started launching boats from designated launch spots, allowing open-water swimmers to access some of these remote, beautiful spots. Boat places became rare. On one two-hour swim along Smitswinkel Bay, 40 places at R600 apiece were snapped up in under 15 minutes.

The proto-Fussers went along on a few of these jaunts, before breaking away and organising their own boat and skipper. The Fussers were formed, personal T-shirts and all. Trust is all, says Roy.

ʻYou need to have a swim buddy who is a similar proficiency to you and knows you well. You can suddenly switch from being strong to delirious from hypothermia. Having a regular swim buddy who can spot when things start degenerating rather than when itʼs too late, keeps the Fussers safe despite the extreme conditions we often find ourselves in.ʼ

The Cape Long Distance Swimming Association chair, Kerry Kopke, says the Fussers epitomise the spirit of adventure that is at the heart of all openwater swimming. ʻThey are trailblazers, pushing the boundaries of what other people consider possible. When Peggy Duncan swam the Robben Island crossing in 1926, 30 000 people flocked to the beach to

THE CALF surfaced right next to the group, THEN THE MOTHER GLIDED PROTECTIVELY between Dave and the calf

cheer her home. Now hundreds of people have swum it and it is considered within reach!ʼ

Part of this is no doubt people working through their post-lockdown frustrations and desire to maintain a healthy lifestyle. The sheer beauty and accessibility of the South African coastline, especially the Cape Peninsula, is another reason. Lewis kayaks off the Atlantic Seaboard several times a week and says that he has noticed a massive increase in water users in the last two years. ʻA few years ago, I did the 100km swim from the V&A waterfront to Simonʼs Town. I did it over 10 days and what struck me was the number of all these other little places to swim. Basically, everyone could do that swim. You just break it down into short, little excursions – each week a different section. What a great way to get into open water swimming!ʼ

International swim holiday company SwimQuest co-founder John Coningham-Rolls says Cape Town has become a relatively new, but world-class, bucketlist destination for swim holidays. SwimQuest takes clientele, who he describes as ʻtriathletes, cold water swimmers and hugely adventurousʼ, to various destinations, including Croatia, the Maldives and most recently to the Arctic Circle in Norway.

ʻSo many people have little contact with nature and all that it offers. I have helped thousands of people connect with such a unifying force which helps people unfold both mentally and physically. It

is an almost cathartic experience that many people feel, but cannot vocalise, seek but struggle to comprehend, but everyone discovers that the more they are in the water, the better they begin to feel.ʼ

He adds that the recent global pandemic has boosted an already growing interest in open-water swimming. ʻThe barriers to entry for open water swimming are small and relatively inexpensive. Swim kit is minimal with maybe a wetsuit being the most expensive item. People are free to have a go on the assumption they are competent swimmers. In Britain, there are numerous lakes and former gravel pits open for swimming, not to mention the coastline, and this has been in the ascendancy for over 10 years. There has also been a huge boom in local open-water swim clubs organised through social media, with groups meeting up for a “dip” and tea and cake all over the country. We are starting to see this growth happen across other parts of the world, too. South Africa, of course, has a buzzing open-water scene.ʼ

At the other end of the spectrum from Lewis or the Fussers are the cold-water enthusiasts known as the bobbers. These are often womenʼs groups who come to sit and chat or stare dreamily at the horizon in any one of the numerous tidal pools dotting the Cape coast. You sense the bobbers are the tadpoles in the evolutionary hierarchy that is open-water swimming.

For now, Iʼm warm-shouldered with the cold Fussers. Weʼve ploughed just under a respectable mile through the roiling Atlantic. Once my hands have stopped shaking long enough to button up my hoody, we all shoot up to Hussar Grill for a burger and a vodka chocolate. ʻYouʼre welcome to join any time the Fussers swim,ʼ Dave tells me over a starter of marrow bones. Iʼm absurdly chuffed.

They’re watching us, we’re watching them. They have nervous members in the group, so do we. The sea lions circle and dip and pop up blowing bubbles and grinning widely. So do we.

BELOW In hindsight, I’m convinced the Fussers made sure I ended up leading the way into 11°C water off Bakhoven.

LEFT Pre-swim kink removal after a hectic doctor’s consult while driving over Buitengracht Street to make the swim on time. RIGHT There are numerous health benefits of swimming in the wild, cold waters. And that’s what they’ll keep telling themselves.

ABOVE Roy Godfrey realises that if you breathe to the right, you’d never know Africa was on your left.

BELOW Pieter Emslie fights traffic from Paarl and back several times a week to make sure he doesn’t miss one of the Fussers swims.

LEFT Dave had warned the Fussers that the sea lions off Cosi Bay can get a bit frisky.

ABOVE Sammy J shows the boys how it’s done, with her preferred side-dismount technique, into the cold, dark turbulent swell off Cape Point.

BELOW: Sammy J and Ropes got into the water chatting and got out the water chatting even more.

ABOVE: You never know when Dave is going to come up with another harebrained, deliriously exciting new route. LEFT: You know it’s been a lekker swim when everyone thinks you spent part of it on a whale’s back!