It was early morning on New Year's Day, writes Elina Grigoriou.
He was sitting in a semi-reclined position in the cafe's swimmers corner, he turns to look at me and ask “so what are you planning for this year?". I was ready with an answer, as I had been thinking about it over the Christmas break. Needing to take my mind off other things, I knew I must set a target. Something that would drive and stretch me to the next level.
"I'm thinking of doubling my longest distance from last year and do a 10k." I say. He nods his head in approval. "Where are you going to do it?" As I had no knowledge of any other, I said I was going to do the Dart 10K like others in the club. He replies with "that's an easy swim!"
As I'm not that well accomplished, I casually ask "oh right yes, do you know any other events perhaps?" "Do something that matters to you!" he says. "Find a beautiful piece of water, one that means something to you, take friends with you, put your feed in the float and go swim".
I listened to him and considered his suggestion. It made sense, but I was initially drawing a blank in my mind as I quickly mentally scanned maps around British waterways.
I went away, a bit at a loss on location, but believing in the direction he had sent me. Over the next couple of days and probably munching on left over Christmas chocolate, I considered my life and locations where I had been close to water. Two locations came very clearly to mind; first was St Mawes in Cornwall, where I spent many summer and Christmas holidays with my English grandparents and cousin Arabella. The other was where I grew up in Greece, in the middle of nowhere, a house on a beach.
My father Hippocrates, inherited the house and land from the family. Although it was a wonderful location to grow up in, it was always full of insecurity, worry and emotional upheaval. Over the years I have learned to manage and come to terms with all that happened and with my father, whose ashes we scattered in front of the beach fence in 2007. Going back to do this swim there was the beginning of the reconstruction of my relationship with the area, friends and family in the area and my own history and past.
So it all very quickly became clear which location I would do and I started looking at maps, searching water behaviour, looking at all the risks and issues I would need to consider to do the swim. The distance by road from my local town Nauplio (pronounced Nafplio) to my old home is 12k by road. When I roughly calculated the coastal route I would take it was around 10k so that was brilliant! It ended up being 11.5k when I focused on the route further into prep!
Over the next few months I searched for water behaviour, but found nothing much. My knowledge of the water behaviour was strong close to my house but completely unknown past the sea village of Tolo. I found a little swimming boat we would be able to drive ourselves. My sister Angeliki was my one confirmed crew. I was hoping an old school friend would do the swim with me but he didn't put the time in so it didn't work out.
Logistics were the one unknown for me and changed up to the last day; for the better as we were joined by our two very close Greek cousins George and Manoli, so it was even more special.
The weather was another thing that changed unexpectedly. It was sunny, and Greece had a bit of a heatwave the week before the swim. Five days before the swim, the weather shows overcloud on the Sunday. I was very pleased as temps were going up to 36C. Friday I get hold of a sailing wind site with all the projections and it shows high winds for Sunday, so I avoid the risk to not do it then and move it to Monday morning. We were all driving back up to Athens on Monday afternoon and flying back on Tuesday, so I was hoping the projections were right. My family had already started asking me to consider perhaps postponing it till September or next year maybe... You can imagine my very well managed response. (€]>|%^]€|!!!!)
As you can see from the photos, the water was stunning and the sun bright. Some choppy water came head on as soon as I got into the Argolic water and I had to increase tempo and change style, but that eased off after 40 minutes.
Passing by fishermen pulling their nets out and saying a casual 'good day' is probably one of my funniest moments.
A few jellyfish stings like bitey-things at only one spot. And the rest of the water was sublime. It is like the most amazing dusty marine blue that feels like silk... I have no idea what the water temp was but guess around 20-21C with some very cold areas every now and then which were a welcomed wake up! No fish sadly but I was somewhat released, as my sister had seen two small sharks not too far away while she was sailing the week before.
All in all, it was a fabulous mini adventure. I really recommend taking the route not traveled, and especially if it has meaning to you.
I could not have done this without the support of so many, my sister who started with me, friends at Serps, sharing so much knowledge, inspiring me and helping me in all sorts of ways.
Swimming is a team sport. Long distance swimming are life events and all our 'events' mean so much, for reasons that have nothing to do with the water and all to do with being human and finding out who we are.
Now for the next target...
Big hugs to all, see you in the water.
Elina x
[Elina Grigoriou]
