Courtmacsherry Lifeboat Swim.

The 9th Annual Courtmacsherry Lifeboat Swim took place at Blind Strand,near the picturesque fishing village of Courtmacsherry at 1.30pm on Saturday,July 27th. There were two options on offer for participants on the day, a onelap 1.5km swim or a two lap 3 km option. All proceeds on the day went to theCourtmacsherry lifeboat. Once again the Blackwater Triathlon Club was wellrepresented. Perennial water babies Dave Mulcahy and Declan O’Keeffe werejoined by Mary Collins, Adam Blaiklock and Stephen Dalton. Declan, Dave andStephen were in the 3km skins race, Adam did the 3km wetsuit event and Mary didthe 1.5km wetsuit race. The weather was lovely and sunny in the morning with avery relaxed atmosphere before the race. It was a mass beach start following atriangular course. Going out was easy as the tide was going out and the windwas going the same direction. Coming back to the beach was harder, swimmingagainst the tide and the wind. Swimmers had one lap for the 1.5k swimmers andan ‘Australian exit’ for the 3k swimmers, who had to exit the water, round thebuoy on the beach and start off for the second lap 2. Unfortunately the weatherdeteriorated as the day went on and the second lap was choppier than the firstlap. There was even a shower of rain at the end as the swimmers returned to thebeach. Dave Mulcahy was greeted by the race organiser as he returned to thebeach, in recognition of the fact that he has now taken part in all 9 of theCourtmacsherry lifeboat swims. There was soup and sandwiches for the swimmersafterwards and everyone agreed that it was a great day out, very friendly andreally well organised. Well done to the organisers and everyone who took parton the day.