Cold Water Swimming 1

Although I have lived by the sea most of my life, I have never had the urge to get into it, but I thought I should try out the new wetsuit and learn to swim in cold water.   This morning, Sandie, Laura and Benjamin took me down to the beach to learn to swim...That is, Seaton Carew beach in North East England - the North Sea....
The wetsuit was good at protecting the  body, arms and legs, but the extremities still suffered with the cold.   I first noticed that agonising feeling of cold water on the hands, then when they had acclimatised, the back of my neck got it, before finally my forehead when I started to swim properly.
It was quite a lot harder than I expected to start with, but once I was used to it I got better, and towards the end I was managing something like my swimming pool swim technique.
Sandie thinks I did about 800m and it will have taken about 25 min.
I definitely need to practice this a bit so that I can just get in and swim - it took 3 attempts to get going this morning, which is not good for a race!
Benjamin enjoyed the beach though...