Rip conquered

JUST short of a score brave swimmers successfully conquered one of Australia’s most fearsome open water crossings on Tuesday when they took part in the annual Rip Swim between Point Nepean and Point Lonsdale.

After departing from the Lonsdale pier last Tuesday (January 10) at 11am by boat and being ferried across the bay, the 18 swimmers – all first-timers on the crossing – split into two groups and jumped in the water by 12pm.

Conditions were near perfect for the group with light southerly winds and an outgoing tide that was used to their advantage producing crossing times of between 58 minutes and one hour and 12 minutes for the 3.2km journey.

“Their times were quite quick,” Rip Swim organiser Grant Siedle said.

“A couple of swimmers ended up pretty far out but then the tide turned and came back in, and ended up sweeping the last person into the finish.

“One lady had a bit of sickness, nausea, but ended recovering and doing fine. The swell is pretty big and rolling, it’s always there and some people feel that a bit.

“There were lots of nice celebrations at the end.”

Solo swimmer Priscilla Chow combined firsts by making her maiden voyage across the heads and becoming the only Malaysian women to have done so.

The successful group crossing took the number of people who’ve made the swim to over 700, and that number is likely to near 800 next month when a second larger group swim and race is scheduled for February 11.

Mr Siedle said this year’s events are benefitting from increased support from Vic Ports who’ve provided windows for swimmers to cross the channel free from ships, “it just made everything a little more relaxed and easy.”

“The harbour master boat was out there with us, keeping an eye on things… as soon as we’d finished out came the Spirit of Tasmania.”

In a happy confluence of dates, Mr Siedle met local swim legend Barry ‘Doc’ Easthoe at the Queenscliff Harbour on the day of the event, who was celebrating his 76th birthday and was the oldest person to swim in the 2018 Rip Swim race.

“And he was the second person to ever swim the rip in 1981… he said ‘thanks for organising the swim on my birthday’,” Mr Siedle said.