We are now in the middle of what we must call summer, Scotland doesn’t often get the sunshine for any more than a nanosecond but we have been baked in glorious sunshine for the past 10 days and this can have a huge positives for us Open Water Swimmers but also many issues.

As you can see from the image above the wet suit is still on but once i had banked the 4 miles training swim we ditched the suits and i have to say it was the warmest i have ever felt Loch Lomond for a suites swim, it was the equivalent of the swimming pool on holiday, chilly at first but once swimming for enjoyable.

With the sunshine also brings the negatives, we were swimming in Castle Semple Loch earlier in the week, this is the shallow loch that we used at the start of the year which is a very shallow Loch and holds the temperature well. We went for a swim on tuesday night and the Loch’s water quality had changed, it was like soup, i hadn’t witnessed the Blue Green Algae bloom previously but you just knew it was present. Rightly so, the local parks authority issued the warning the following day.

I mentioned last week that there are dangers and we met a few then with Jet skies, speed boats and even Water Planes. Yesterday we met what i consider to be the biggest danger- the rowers. All other water users no matter how fast they are travelling are facing towards you and we make ourselves as noticeable as possible, rowers are oblivious to what is going on behind and in Loch Lomond there isn’t any rowing lanes so we need to mind read.

I’m always courteous to them all and try to engage in a chat, coaches and younger rowers seem pleasant but we met an older couple on Saturday who were far too superior in their rowing boats, when i asked the question what part of the Loch will they be rowing in so we can stay out of their way the answer was firm “Don’t know”

I need to thank my swimming partner this weekend, Robert Heron, without him i would have been on my own and for safety reasons wouldn’t have managed to get a decent swim in. He’s another fish, we headed out to the green and red buoys without the wetsuits on the way back in he breaks into 50M of Butterfly and flies past my plod of a front crawl. Previously i would have been very annoyed that he was able to pass me so easily, now i just have to watch and admire!

So here i am sat at the computer tapping away with 6 weeks to go until the planned big day. How do i feel? I actually feel good, I am aware that we have only done a few larger swims at 4, 5 and 8 miles but we have certainly trained the strength into our shoulders.

Onwards an upwards!