Port Nelson Swim Eight, January 1, 2015

Tricky conditions all round, with wind, tide and light buoys making navigation difficult. Only 124 swimmers with a lot of people away, but numbers boosted by visitors to the region.

Don’t forget the Eyebright Mile on Sunday – the annual 2km swim from the yacht club to the beach. Start time on the full tide at 10.15am. Registration from 9am.

Here’s some photos – thanks Anna Perkins, click here

Featured swimmers – Dean and Hannah Straker didn’t plan it, but after starting with the pink caps came in side by side. Hannah said navigation wasn’t easy, but that was a common complaint tonight. The couple are relatively new to sea swimming, but looking forward to a bit of coaching to sharpen up their stroke and endurance.

Results – updated version, click here

Nelson Mail stories are slow to appear online with everyone on holiday, so here’s a pdf of the story

Points table – here’s the update

Samoa swim. The big prize for the season. After every swim, one long course swimmer is drawn at random. By the end of the season we’ll have 18 swimmers. They have to have done 12 swims over the season. Any that haven’t done 12 will be dropped and the remainder go into the draw for the big prize – a trip for two Nelson-Samoa, with accommodation, transport and entry to the three-race Samoa Swim Series

Tonight’s chosen swimmer is Wayne Corbett. Wayne goes into the final draw in March. Wayne already done seven swims, so needs to swim five more of the remaining ten swims to qualify. To see the other swimmers in the draw so far, check out the points table (above).