The Boroughcouttas annual Blue Water Challenge was this year billed as an MSV inter-club challenge, so it seemed like a great opportunity to test ourselves against the opposition in an open water contest instead of in the pool.  Jaye’s invitation to throw a club shindig at her family home afterwards sealed the deal for most of us, and about half of the Belugas membership headed for Queenscliff.

Jaye’s cousin Shane is unfortunately still a few years away from being eligible for Masters, so we adopted him as club mascot for the day.  A scorching swim saw him finish 2nd in the Male 13-17 category, while Sue Cox also finished on the podium with 2nd place in the Female 40-49 age group.

Raoul Mulder, Duncan Howard and Paul Turner inspecting an impromptu ‘selfie’ at the finish line.

Beluga Sue Cox (right) with the other placegetters in the female 40-49 age category.

Now, we do fancy ourselves as open water ‘specialists’ a little bit, so it was very encouraging to see the Belugas finish in equal 5th place of the 27 clubs represented on the day!  Everyone did sensationally well given the tough (choppy) conditions – results below.