Ok so let me quickly clear up the term “Dr Shelly”. Many of the long time swimmers at shelly beach refer to the shelly pools as “Dr Shelly”. The reason being is that it keeps the older folk healthy, fit, active and provides a social environment that is nice to be around. What does a doctor do ? Keeps you well and healthy. Whether its mentally or physically the doctor helps with all those things. Since the pools at shelly does both for the longtime swimmers, its referred to as “Dr Shelly” 🙂

So today I arrived at the crack of dawn, said hi to the usual suspects and looked out over the water and realised that it was not the kind of conditions that would be good for freediving training (or swimming for that matter), specially if you are after some nice dynamics back and forth through the pool. I got in the water and began the session with some warmups followed by the swim. Started on the far right corner of the north end of the pool and after the laps due to the washing machine effect caused by the currents, most of us ended up at the bottom left corner of the south end of the pool. Visibility was also crap so it was hard to know whether you had reached the other side or not. Pretty much everyone ended on the bottom left of the south end of the pool so even the swimmers would get clumped together in one end of the pool.

Today was a pretty crappy day to train but watching the waves crash and the height of the water coming in over the rocks, along with feeling the pull and the strength of the current just makes you realise the awesome power of the ocean. It can be calm and peaceful one day and on the next its completely rough and unforgiving.

Anyway, to close of the morning pool session, I simply took my fins off, took my mask off and just floated on my back with my face to the sky. It started raining and feeling the rain on my face, the bobbing up and down of the waves on my back and the sound of the waves crashing was very relaxing. Had my wetsuit on too so it was nice and warm.

Photos and video attached… 🙂