Shane Gould’s happy to be all at sea on Tasmania’s East Coast

IT  is a crisp morning on the beach at Bicheno, on Tasmania’s East Coast. As the sun rises a group of swimmers, clad in wetsuits, emerges from the dunes.

IT  is a crisp morning on the beach at Bicheno, on Tasmania’s East Coast.

As the sun rises a group of swimmers, clad in wetsuits, emerges from the dunes.

Among them is the man who runs the town’s famous penguin tours, the local butcher, a schoolteacher, an artist, a musician and Australia’s most successful female Olympic swimmer, Shane Gould.

They are members of the Coffee Club, an ocean swimming group who plunge into the waters of Waubs Bay every single morning, 365 days a year, no matter how icy the temperature.

The resident swim club, led by Australian Olympic swimmer Shane Gould, right, goes for a 40-minute swim every day in the sea off Bicheno. Picture: KIM EISZELE

Gould, who has been living in Tasmania for about 10 years, says it is an invigorating way to start the day.

But there are mornings she looks out the window and has second thoughts.

“When the wind is howling and it’s raining. People think we’re mad, and we think ourselves mad,” she says.

Initially the group would swim only in summer.

“As the water got cooler we started to buy gloves and heavier wetsuits and so on, and anticipated the cold,” Gould says.

“We started to think, ‘It’s 14C, can we keep going,’ then it got to 13C and we just kept going through the winter.”

Water temperatures can drop to 10C in winter but rise to 22C during summer, when the group swells from just a handful to 20 or 30 swimmers.

One of the many quirks of the Coffee Club is its birthday celebrations.

Each member brings a cake on their special day. It is put in a waterproof tow bag where it is swum to a floating platform that Gould’s grandchildren helped her make.

Coffee Club swimmers head off from Waub’s Bay for their daily swim. Picture: KIM EISZELE

There they paddle about while enjoying the cake and some wine or champagne from a Thermos flask.

“We tread water and eat cake, so it’s too bad if your hand drops down into the water, it tastes a bit salty,” Gould says.

On occasions they have had waterproof speakers playing music and party hats, all while in the middle of the ocean.

Gould says the group had formed organically.

“It’s a way to meet people on an even playing field,” she says. “It builds a strength and unity in a small town, groups like this.

“There’s something really peculiar about it. A lot of communities form spontaneously and it builds social coherence.

“We’ve learnt to trust each other because sometimes the conditions can be hazardous.

“The winds push you around – you can’t see each other across the water.”

The swimmers stay within 10m of each other for safety, the stronger swimmers push ahead and loop back.

On group members’ birthdays, the swimmers paddle about while enjoying cake and some wine or champagne from a Thermos flask. Picture: KIM EISZELE

The Coffee Club is a closely knit group that regularly socialises out of the water – going to the pub for a schnitzel, to a gig or an exhibition by one of the group members, or playing beach volleyball.

As well as the health and fitness benefits and social outcomes, Gould says one of the incredible things about ocean swimming is observing the sea life.

“When the water is 13C or 14C you get a lot of stingray,” she says.

“In June there were a whole lot of crabs, the bottom was covered in them, then we also had octopus chasing them. We’ve had dolphins swimming pretty close, within a few metres, and a whale came in once that was only about 20m away.

“We also get seals from a nearby seal colony.”

When she’s not in the water, Gould keeps busy with charity work and study.

She is in her third year of a PhD on the culture of swimming in Australia at the University of Tasmania.

Shane Gould holding up her gold medal at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games.

Gould is one of the world’s greatest female swimmers. At the 1972 Olympics she became the only Australian woman to win five ­individual medals, three of them gold and in world record times.

From 1971-73 she broke 11 world records in six events.

At the age of 17 she retired from competitive swimming and withdrew from public life.

Gould says the media hype about the Australian team’s performance in Rio was nothing new.

“It happens every time,” she says.

“There’s an anticipation of outcome because the Olympics are an occasion for ­nationalism and patriotism.”

American swimmer Dana Vollmer, who won three medals in Rio, is one of about 10 Olympic swimmers who have visited Bicheno to train with Gould and her swim coach husband Milton Nelms.

They have a project in Sweden called Gilla Vatten, which means “don’t be afraid of water”, helping teachers prepare people frightened of the water or who are inexperienced learn to swim.

They also have a village-based drowning prevention program in Fiji, where they teach people to swim.