Ocean Swimming

Swimming in the open ocean is in our blood.  My Dad's Dad (Grandpa Frank) was a member of the US Navy's Underwater Demolition Team 4 during World War 2.  It was his job to perform pre-invasion beach reconnaissance, which he did for the American invasions of Guam, Leyte, Ie Shima and Okinawa.  When he went to war it was in swim trunks, flippers, a mask, a knife and towing a raft with TNT packed into rubber hoses to clear away invasion obstacles so the Marines could get ashore.  

While John and I were on Patmos we spent time each day swimming in the Aegean Sea.  The water was amazing crisp, clear and refreshing.  Normally, on Patmos we were swimming around on a beach somewhere and we would swim out past the surf zone and cruise up and down the beach.  Today, in Malta we decided that the best way to see the shore that St. Paul  shipwrecked on was to take a late-afternoon / evening boat tour to Comino Island - so that along the way the boat would sail past St. Paul's island.  We booked a ride on an ocean going catamaran and went on the tour.    

Our boat trip took us past St. Paul's island, and then onto the Island of Camino, where we first anchored
at Crustal Lagoon which has a cave / arch where the rocks have filled into the sea and has left a small bay that is open to the sun.  As soon as the boat stopped, the two old guys (John and I) were off the stern and swimming for the cave - it was about a 100m swim and we had to dodge some other tour boats to get there.  There was a British woman who swam up to join us for the swim.  If you swim fully into the cave you get to see it open up to the sky above - a very cool site (You can check it out on Google Maps here).  We were able to find a rock that was shallow enough for us to touch bottom and then we turned and swam back to the boat - where we spent the rest of the time diving in and out of the water.  After about 30 minutes of swimming the boat departed (with us aboard) for the Blue Lagoon, which as it turned out was on the other side of the island.

When the boat docked at the Blue Lagoon, we had to go ashore and walk about 200m to the swimming beach.  Malta is primarily made of limestone and sandstone rock - and along the waters edge there are many heavily eroded limestone pavements - where you walk across razor-sharp rocks to get to and from the water.  To deal with this I took along my GoPro, and one of my backpacking stuff-sacks into which I put our sandals.  Then hooking the bag over my left shoulder John and I struck out for the other side of the bay, about 100m away through mostly shallow water.  I say mostly shallow because most of the time John and I could touch the bottom with our feet.  Before getting out on the other side we put on our sandals so we could scramble across the sharp and awkward rocks.  Once we got to the other side we found a sea-cave that was open to the sea on the other side - so not to be deterred we swam through the cave (about 30m in length) all the way out into the ocean on the far side.  This was really cool to do.  Floating on my back I could see that higher-up in the cave were other passages leading off to one side or another.  

Having explored the caves on the west side of the Blue Lagoon, we then swam back across the lagoon (again with my sandals in a bag being towed behind me), however the tide had been coming in while we were exploring caves and now it was starting to ebb, which caused there to be a wicked current pulling us out to sea - so we had to swim into the current to get back across to the boat - which we were successful in doing.  After that we went back to the boat and spent the remainder of our time diving from the boat.  

Sailing back under a moon-lit ocean I found myself reflecting on how swimming is one of those activities that integrates me - body, mind and soul.  I need to work to get somewhere (body), and I need to think about how I am going to do it (mind) and it gives me great joy to be able to play in God's creation (soul).  I hope you find some time to praise God in His creation this week.