Photo : Winter beauty, Nelson

Winter is cold and/or rainy in Nelson this year: 2 degrees at night, 12 degrees during the day, when it’s sunny. Or it’s warmer but rains for several days in a row, which is usually quite rare in this part of the world. My passion for cold-water swimming has taken a hit. I haven’t been able to swim for three weeks because of the rain, then because the water was contaminated, or because the road was blocked by landslides. When I resumed my routine, the water was 11 degrees (still one degree cooler than the cold water baths the Tour de France cyclists have), a degree higher than last year at this time of year, but the experience felt colder because the ambient air was around 8 or 9 degrees in the morning, whereas last year, the 10 degree water felt more comfortable because I still felt the warmth of the sun at 12 or 13 degrees. All these changes are due, according to experts, to La Nina and climate change in general. In fact, I am in my fourth year of winter swimming and no two winters have been the same. I wonder what next winter will bring.