Lost punter makes landfall at last

Lost punter.

About two-thirds of the way from Coalcliff to Stanwell Park, we stopped to get our bearings, but we were distracted immediately by a punter swimming at 90 degrees across our path, behind our legs. He was heading directly to sea, somewhere north of Auckland, we figured. Probably make landfall around the Bay of Islands, albeit on the west coast. We watched him plonk, plonk, plonking out to sea. He was about to intersect another mug swimmer's path, too, although with this one the intersection would occur at about the other chap's neck.

At about that time, the water safety chappies saw this hopelessly lost swimmer. They whistled to him, they shouted at him, and eventually he stopped and looked around, too.

We thought at first that he was making for this outward swimmer, who was his friend, because he had something interesting to tell him. "Did you see that starfish on the bottom?" perhaps. But then, we thought, how would he know, half a kilometre offshore the Illawarra Escarpment, and two kilometres through the swim, that this was his cobber?

Indeed, he didn't. He was, in fact, lost. Hopelessly lost. And he's lucky that others saw him, and that that outward swimmer crossed his path, at about his neck, for otherwise he'd have ended up much farther out to sea and very, very much alone.

We accosted this mug. He told us he'd left his goggles in the car. Oh, well, that's alright then. We told him he could stick with us and we could guide him in. Perhaps he misunderstood us for he showed no interest in the offer, and indeed we watched him slaloming the rest of the course into Stanwell Park beach, which he also was lucky to find.

Just one of life's whimsies.

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