Christmas swim gets seal of approval

WHATEVER about the danger of sleeping with the fishes, the traditional Christmas Day swim at the famous Forty Foot in Dublin’s Sandycove brought a new and unexpected hazard this year in the shape of dozens of hungry grey seals.

The number of these hyperactive marine mammals has soared in recent years and, according to regular swimmer and yachtsman Fred Espey, they can produce a nasty bite.

“They can be pretty fearsome creatures at the best of times, but the main problem is when they approach you and you pull your leg away suddenly,” Mr Espey said.

The south Co Dublin bathing area, formerly colonised only by naked men, has become a haunt for the seals. Up to 22 have been spotted together at one time, according to Mr Espey.

He says several incidents have occurred over the past year where bathers have been bitten.

“I have been swimming for 60 years, but in the last five years the number of seals in this area has risen quite markedly,” Mr Espey said.

Recently, a woman had to have five stitches in her leg, and many women are now afraid to swim alone.

Elsewhere along coastal waters from Newcastle in Co Down to Valentia island in south west Kerry, hundreds of swimmers risked life, limb and hypothermia to take part in what has become an annual mix of pilgrimage and pantomime.

Those benefiting most from all this frenetic activity are the charities that, every year, gain hundreds of thousands of euro from sponsored swims.

At a shallow spot in Dingle Bay, a small knot of swimmers took the plunge for a swim with Fungi, Dingle’s famous dolphin.

Wearing sleek head to toe wet suits, they looked uncommonly like grey seals. It was just as well they were not swimming at the Forty Foot.